It all had to begin someplace, this life of journeying, wandering, and poking my nose down unknown roads.
Well, here is one starting point — my first Minnesota road trip. Don’t know the year — looks like early to mid-sixties (saddle shoes?). The car is “Fred,” named after a friend who wrapped his car around a tree and thus wrapped up his life at the same time. Fred was a ’47 Chev, purchased jointly with my friend, Steven, because neither of us alone had the requisite $20 that the guy was asking for the car. However, we drove a hard bargain (we couldn’t come up with the full amount) and became Fred’s proud owners for $19.43, which has become the eternal benchmark for my whining about the current price of jeans, hamburgers, and anything else.
But I digress.
Fred had certain limitations and did not live a long life. His inaugural run was from Minneapolis to Duluth which took us seven hours because Fred couldn’t go over 35 miles per hour. Something about a leaking head gasket — an automotive malady about which I knew nothing at the time but would learn more about than I ever wanted to know in my subsequent years as the owner of a string of cheap cars.
But Fred endured and made it back. However, his second trip to Rochester, a mere 80 miles, did not go as well. Fred gave up the ghost somewhere in the farmlands of southern Minnesota and was sold or given to a gas station owner. As far as I know, Fred could still be roaming the hills of that countryside today.
My current ride cost more than a legion of Freds and will surely take me successfully on the upcoming LONE DOG ROAD tour through the same roads that Fred and a number of his automotive successors so happily traveled in the intervening years.
Look at the map on my website, mark your nearest location, and come on by. I’m looking forward to the cornfields and the wheatfields and the lakes and the forests and the ribbons of asphalt and gravel that make up our wonderful northern state. Once hooked by the road, it never gets out of your system.
So, here’s looking at you, Fred. You started a journey that has not yet stopped. And, truth be told, 35 miles per hour is just fine with me.
Kent, Your story about FRED is a wonderful way to begin your book tour. I loved the story. Enjoy your initial book tours. I won’t be able to make it to Minnesota anytime soon, but I hope that you will include the Washington DC Metropolitan area where I live on future tours. I’m really excited about Lone Dog Road and can’t wait to read it. My book just arrived in the mail. Good luck on your tour.
Ah, Fred. Mine was Edna (named after my aunt).
Love the story of Fred. My grandson is only twenty and loves these old cars. If you ever have a chance and are going through other stops in Minnesota, maybe you could look up ‘Wild Cat Santuary’ in Sandstone. Have a wonderful trip.
Thanks for e.mails can.t get around like did, at last i have my memonries of my stay on pine ridge a few years ago
I’m distraught that Mr. Allen didn’t book you to visit Roseau County with ‘Lone Dog Road’, particularly the city of Roseau, which has some personal link to Marc himself (Catherine Stenzel knows much more about it than do I). That book tour stop would’ve made your book-tour map truly inclusive of Minnesota particularly, this part, known for all its adventurous old car/truck owners and individuals who embraced the challenges of the open road ‘back in the day.’ (minus the saddle shoes). One such individual, born in 1945 in Roseau County, was a third-generation blacksmith of proud Norwegian ancestry, who, upon acquiring a fiberglass sailboat named ‘Popeye,’ in Tuff Rubber Balls, MN (Technically Thief River Falls, Minnesota) impulsively decided to build his own steel sailboat, immediately thereafter, and in doing so concluded said building in six years, moved it down the Mississippi to Slidel, LA in 1999; learned to sail & navigate in the Gulf of Mexico & Puerto Rico; (and one trip to Cuba); then set sail for Norway in 2000 with a green crew of four in his home-built 38-foot steel Bruce Roberts-designed sailboat named Indian Summer. He wrote a book about it. Did book tours, gave presentations.
Jerry Solom would’ve enjoyed your books as much as I have, that’s a fact. He’s the guy I thought you so strongly physically resembled when we met in February, this year, in Brrmidji.
I’m awaiting my copy of LDR; checking the mailbox everyday.
Never fear. This was a bookstore-based tour. I’ve set up a library-based tour that will correct the oversights of this tour. That one, which will be in November, will include Greenbush, Hallock, Red Lake Falls, Roseau, Thief River Falls, Warren, and Warroad. Can’t leave off my favorite part of the state.