The stomach
can be filled
at Bill's house
The stomach
- Bill Holm's most recent book: The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth: Minneota, Minnesota.
I admit it: I picked this book up with a slight bias. See, I wasn't at all thrilled to note that Minneota's seemingly biggest claim to fame -- other than that Josephson kid who played ball for the LA Rams -- was this big bear of the guy who's kind of become Minneota's poster child ... and for what? writing a book of poems about Boxelder Bugs?
I've yet to bump into a Minneotan who's thrilled to see these speckled little devils infesting his home like some swarm of wayward killer bees. (I know I wasn't particularly thrilled to have to build my treefort in a Boxelder tree.) Yet somehow, Holm has led Minneota like some Pied Piper to name its annual celebration Boxelder Bug Days. This, to me, is akin to those folks in the north naming their local swimming hole Leech Lake. Eeeauuwwwww...
That much said, I have to admit ... with some relief ... that after taking in Holm's latest work, that I was more than OK with his book. Almost 15 years after abandoning that flyspeck on the tundra that I called my home town, Holm managed to strike a couple of nerves with me.
Part of my reaction, I'm sure, was merely sentimentality. Holm's glowing recollections of the Big Store's heyday catapulted me back to the days when I first arrived in Minneota, and mom hauled me and my older brother downtown to explore that truly big store. I remember venturing into that high-ceilinged store only a handful of times before it closed up for good.
But Holm's book also served to further reinforce my growing realization of what has long been obvious to Holm -- that small towns are neither devoid of culture, nor of interesting inhabitants. By Holm's account, Minneota and the surrounding countryside was and is home to a legion of closet scholars, historians, musicians and philosophers, any of whom would make for a good short story. (The only problem, as pointed out by Bill, is pulling some of these intellectuals out into the sunlight.)
Romance, intrigue, and lust? There's plenty in small towns like Minneota, Holm says, and it's just as colorful and scandalous as you'll find in any big city -- though likely more memorable.
But where Holm succeeds best perhaps, is in reminding folks like me -- who have wandered off from Minneota in search of something more "real" -- that it's less about where you are than about what you do there. It's about people and traditions and quality of life ... connections, the kind that call to you long after you've left for the big city, pulling you like some faint homing signal.
For those weak of stomach and short of patience, be forewarned of Holm's lengthy dissertation on brown bread and other Icelandic dishes. That aside, Holm offers some tasty tidbits that are sure to satisfy anyone who's ever been to Minneota ... or who might agree that as Ralph Larsen says, "it's the place I wanna go tah."