Fun in Minnesota
One of the enjoyable things about reading the memoirs of a famous state-level politician—meaning those who didn’t make it to the White House—is learning about the intrinsically “my state” things that must be done to get elected. For instance, to get elected to state-wide office in Minnesota means a mandatory visit to the state fair. And a visit to any state fair remains an excellent opportunity for imagery with the only question being how their fair differs from your own fair:
“Famous traditions at our State Fair include all kinds of food on a stick, from chocolate-covered bacon to chocolate-covered bananas; the Mighty Midway; roasted corn and enormous crowds; and plenty of beer. A major highlight is the all-day butter-carvings of Princess Kay of the Milky Way and her court, in which a down-coated woman in a revolving, glassed-in, refrigerated booth carves a new princess butter bust every day as fairgoers watch her and the tiara-wearing princesses from all sides. Once I asked a princess what she would do with her butter bust when the fair was over. `Oh,’ she said, `we'll put it in my mom’s freezer, but since the features degrade over time, we plan to set it out at the annual town corn fest and everyone will dig in with their ears of corn.’”
Miss Kalionen
Miss Kalionen was the author’s fourth-grade math teacher. The imagery Klobuchar recollects of this woman that she actually recalls with great fondness is a portrait in miniature of the advancements that have been made in elementary education over the decades since the author was a child:
“Miss Kalionen…was a cross between a Catholic school nun and the similarly red-haired and then-popular comedienne Carol Burnett…once, after one boy had really acted out, she dramatically upended his desk in the middle of class. His desk was chock-full of stuff and everything came flying out, including all his Hot Wheels. After a fleet of the miniature cars spilled out and rolled down the rows of desks to the front of the room, she looked at him and said, `Charlie, all that’s between those ears is cold mashed potatoes and gravy.’”
Earliest Memory
Since the author is, after all, a politician—and a Democrat at that—one must retain at least a bit of skepticism when she recalls her earliest childhood memory. Even though it is related to a historical event that could very well could conceivably stimulate such a memory, the whole thing does seem perhaps seem just a little too perfectly modulated to be entirely true. But who knows; stranger things have happened:
“My earliest memory in life is of my mom the day President Kennedy was killed. People a little older than me remember seeing the coverage of the assassination and the funeral procession on TV—the horse-drawn caisson with the casket, little John-John’s salute, the black veil—but I don’t recall any of that. I only remember my mother on the floor of our basement laundry room, crying over her pile of Life magazines, clutching a cover showing Jackie Kennedy in a nice suit and pearls with the president in the background.”
The Senate Desk
One of the strangest things about the Senate is the premium that those elected there place upon the desks at which they sit. Anyone who has simply seen footage of an important vote taking place would be forgiven for assuming that these articles furnishing are absolutely identical to each other. Greatness is invested in some of these—desks, really and truly just simple desks—by those who come to Washington. Klobuchar is no different although the imagery ironically undoes her passion:
“Humphrey’s ability to get things done was one of the many reasons why, soon after I arrived in Washington, I requested his desk in the Senate chamber. The small wooden desk finally arrived a few months later, and when I opened the desktop and saw the carved names of the senators who had used the desk, I immediately spotted the bold printed name `Humphrey.’ The problem? The first name wasn’t `Hubert,’ it was `Gordon.’ They had mistakenly given me the desk of little-known former Republican Senator Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire.”
