Beware The Little Fellow With An Idea
Bumping home in the cab. Broke my toe, and since it's -40 out, no way I'm walking home. Tried that yesterday. Two & a half miles home, in that cold. Thought I'd "test the foot." Somebody should test my head. Anyway, cab rides can be interesting.
I'm headed out of the old industrial North End, down the big boulevard to the Legislature, past the park there, the one with the little statue of William Stephenson. Hometown boy. His story starts small, seemingly not enough to warrant a statue. World War One, just another kid who signs up, gets gassed. But at least he stuck it out. Came home, started his own hardware business, based around some can opener he'd seen in England. Did well, made some money. Typical "little guy does pretty well" story. Not worth a statue though. Even a little one.
But when World War Two rolls around, he becomes something else entirely. A Man Called Intrepid. Churchill's representative to FDR. The guy who helps create MI5, the OSS & the CIA. Part of the whole story around breaking the Enigma code, he also sets up Camp X to train the Allies' secret agents, saboteurs, commandos.
And is apparently the guy Ian Fleming says he built James Bond around.
But in this town... no 007 hype. Even though Stephenson was real, helped win a real War, against real Baddies.
Most of us live in nowhere towns like this, or nowhere parts of bigger towns. And no matter where we are, we tend to think of ourselves as everyday, normal, people. Little people. The Media & the Politicians & the Rich & Powerful like to support us in that self-image. Once every 4 years they preach that it's all about the little people in the small towns, but after that... it's 24/7 for the Big Boys.
Bumpbump, bumpbump, BANG... pothole. No way to ever stop these streets from frost-heaving, I guess. People here complain about the roads, and the cold, same as anywhere else. But they know they're well off not to have to face the cold head-on, full-blast, like earlier generations did. Hard to imagine, the Ukrainians & the Mennonites, the Germans & the Poles, the Brits & the French, who'd spilt so much of each other's blood, coming here, living together. Wintering in sod houses on the open Prairie, or freezing cold shacks in the cities. But when you're little people, and you live half-buried in the ground & half-exposed to a Nature that big, that raw, it humbles you a bit. You learn how to keep your head down, to pull together. You leave the old shit in the old country's latrine.
And you learn how to wink. Like, if you're a guy lucky enough to be named Homer, and with the good fortune to be born halfway between Moose Jaw & Swift Current, and the treble true blessing to be Mennonite - well, you know that's pretty much a one-way ticket to Forgotten-town for you. But if you work hard, and you're patient, and you give your kid a better name, like Matt, maybe someday he'll get lucky, and get to make cartoons on TV. And then he can slip a wink inside the jokes he tosses into all those little towns & little peoples' homes. Like so -
This is what I'm thinking about, bouncing along in the cab, through this funny little town. Funny little city, I should probably say. 730,000 people, that's the size of places like Scranton, Youngstown, Syracuse. This one perhaps most notable for the fact that it's the world's coldest capital city. Yep, Moscow & Stockholm & Anchorage & Ottawa are cold. But this place is colder. Not unexpected, when you're 6 hours drive North of Minneapolis, 3 hours North of Fargo. They hired some hotshots to re-brand the region a few years back. Some wit/arse suggested "North of North Dakota." The branding experts from NYC didn't smile. But we did.
This past week though... -40 windchills, every day. -40 being where Celsius & Fahrenheit meet, nod stiffly, and snowshoe on in silence. Too cold to take off the gloves & shake. Cold that makes your breath freeze & fall to the ground. Cold that makes your eyes water, then flash-freezes them shut. This year, I've learned this kind of cold makes new fillings hurt like hell. Nice touch. Coupla years back, it fell to -70 Fahrenheit with the windchill. Walked to work in it, 2 and 1/2 miles each way, just so I could say I did it.
Ummm... "I did it?" About as smart as "testing the foot."
Now what I hope you're thinking at this point is, "Wow. Not many rich people, powerful people, sexy people, smart people, are gonna rush to a town like that, right?" Right. But it does make the place a good test-zone for what human beings - regular little people - can do for themselves.
And obviously, for starters, they have to find ways to amuse themselves in the mornings. Pet Coffee Tricks, for instance.
