November 3rd--
Once upon a time I lived in a hick town in Minnesota, where everyone lived on a steady diet of hamburger helper and Bud Light, and 50% of the population had the last name Hohiezel. When my family came gallivanting into town in our moving van, we were immediately labelled as the California Freaks. A mid-sized clan of vegetarians, unloading a van packed full of suspicious-looking houseplants and my mad scientist father carrying a cardboard box labelled "skulls." (Which contained skulls, of course. They were part of my dad's biological research project for Humboldt State University.)
Minnesota was flat and bleak, an icy, windswept wasteland where decrepit old men spent their days fishing out of holes they drilled in the ice, gnawing on their chewing tobacco and counting their few remaining teeth on gnarled fingers. Their wives would wait at home, gabbing on the telephone about so-and-so's new haircut while waiting for their apple pie to bake. Their children would linger in the bars, and play pool until their mothers called them with news of dinner's ready, don't cha know.
While the rest of Pierz, Minnesota carried out their meek lives in such a manner, my family did our best to convert out 70's house into a small slice of California. I was five-years-old and my favorite thing in the whole world was to pretend to be a cow and attempt to eat the lime green shag carpet that was in my room. That was life.
No comments:
Post a Comment