Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Century
    Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Century
    Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Century
    Ebook211 pages2 hours

    Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Century

    By Lee Foster

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    What is it like growing up in America? The answer depends partly on the time and place. More specifically, what was it like growing up in a mid-America Minnesota around mid-20th century?

    This book provides an answer to the question.

    Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Century is a new edition and a new title for a book that Lee Foster wrote and photographed in the late 1960s. The book was first published in 1970 and titled Just 25 Cents and Three Wheaties Boxtops. Lee was studying American Literature and beginning his writing career as a graduate student at Stanford at the time. His mentor, Wallace Stegner, liked the book and assisted him in getting an agent and publisher.

    This book is a collection of memories. It is something other than essays forming a memoir. It attempts to approximate the language, conversation, thought, images, and feelings of the era. The goal is to capture the essence and spirit of growing up in a Minnesota America of that era.

    As Lee Foster wrote in the 1970 edition:

    “The boy often dreamed of where his life would roam as a man. When he became a man, who had lived 26 years on the planet, he looked back on his life and created a dream, not unlike his earlier dreams of the future. Memories of his times returned, some as recent as a year ago, some as dimly distant as 20 years past, often bursting forth gratuitously, always appearing in an order that was true to a chronology of the spirit, a truth of textures and shadings and fragile moments. He realized, as the pleasures of his re-creation stretched into months, that the story belonged less to himself than to a part of his generation. Phrases, objects, and people, as they passed before him, spoke their imprisoned moments of the past, which, like a thousand genies within bottles, lay always present, but definitely mute, waiting for their proper decoders, waiting for those singers of songs who reach for the magic words and unlock fragments of all our secrets.”

    “Minnesota Boy is a poetic slice of Americana”
    –Jim Gebbie
    “A brilliant memoir portrait, masterful writing, with significant historical value”
    – Ann F. Purcell

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLee Foster
    Release dateMar 12, 2015
    ISBN9780976084334
    Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Century
    Author

    Lee Foster

    Lee Foster, born in 1943, grew up in a Minnesota of fishing for black bass, playing baseball, and hunting for ring-necked pheasants. He was the son of a factory owner in Mankato, a small city of 30,000. He took an under¬graduate degree in Great Books at the University of Notre Dame and a graduate degree in English-American Literature at Stanford University, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. After these years of reading, some travel in Europe, and an increasing interest in photog-raphy, he began his own books of fiction and nonfiction. His main attention in recent decades has been travel writ-ing/photography. He now lives in Berkeley, California. His range of travel journalism can be seen on his Foster Travel Publishing website at http://www.fostertravel.com. He has been active in developing travel articles, photos, books, ebooks, apps, websites, and now audiobooks. Some of his work has been with traditional publishers; other efforts have been as an independent publisher. Over the years, Lee has published travel writing/photography in almost all the leading U.S. travel magazines and newspapers. His book partnerships include the use of his travel photos in more than 300 Lonely Planet books. His main personal books/ebooks are listed on his website at http://www.fostertravel.com/shop/. His recent works currently available include: 2015: Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Centu-ry (book, ebook, a re-publication on his 1970 book Just 25 Cents and Three Wheaties Boxtops) 2015-2009: Three Sutro Media travel apps: San Francisco Travel and Pho-to Guide, Berkeley Essential Guide, and Washington DC Travel and Photo Guide 2014: Travels in an American Imagination: The Spiritual Geography of Our Time (audiobook in 2014, book from 2005, ebook from 2013) 2013: Northern California Travel: The Best Options (book, ebook, website) Back Roads California (publisher Dorling Kindersley, co-author, book) 2009: The Photographer’s Guide to San Francisco (publisher Coun-tryman Press, book, ebook) The Photographer’s Guide to Washington DC (publisher Coun-tryman Press, co-author, book, ebook) 2002: Northern California History Weekends (publisher Globe Pe-quot, book)

    Read more from Lee Foster

    Related to Minnesota Boy

    Related ebooks

    Composition & Creative Writing For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tea With The DRAGON LADY

      Feb 12, 2020

      Tea With The DRAGON LADY
      6 min read

    • Article

      Allen Zhou

      May 28, 2021

      Allen Zhou
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Parrots of January

      Nov 25, 2023

      The Parrots of January
      3 min read

    • Article

      Q&A Percy Daggs III

      Mar 26, 2022

      Q&A Percy Daggs III
      5 min read

    • Article

      Giving It All to God

      Oct 1, 2021

      Giving It All to God
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lifted

      Oct 1, 2021

      Lifted
      6 min read

    • Article

      Mary, Did You Know?

      Nov 27, 2021

      Mary, Did You Know?
      1 min read

    • Article

      A Single Red Balloon

      Feb 12, 2024

      Joe wanted a reason to live. He was sitting on the corner of Lexington and 53rd, surrounded by his few worldly possessions and a cardboard sign that read “Disabled Veteran, Please Help” propped up against a metal jar with a few coins in it. He walks

      2 min read

    • Article

      Stocking Full Of Coal

      Oct 28, 2021

      Stocking Full Of Coal
      3 min read

    • Article

      Chimes

      Jan 21, 2020

      Each of us has a story, and that story is entwined with the stories of others. People we love, places we cherish, and memories of the past converge as we inscribe our own narrative. Certainly, the stories we read and take with us influence who we wil

      3 min read

    • Article

      Nana’s Princess

      Dec 28, 2020

      Nana’s Princess
      2 min read

    • Article

      Now The Leaves Are Falling Fast

      Apr 10, 2021

      I watched my wife leave our neighbor’s house, her empty hands shoved deep in the pockets of her red anorak. She came inside through our carport. I met her in our kitchen. “Beverly was really happy for the soup,” she said. “Honestly, it was a little s

      8 min read

    • Article

      Hearing God’s Voice

      Sep 26, 2021

      Hearing God’s Voice
      5 min read

    • Article

      Mysterious Ways

      May 27, 2022

      “When I die, I want to come back as a cat,” my wife, Sue, always joked. “And if I could choose, I’d come here!” True, there was no better place to be a cat than our house. We had spoiled all of ours rotten. Boomie, our old Maine Coon, was the current

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Up Side®

      Jul 26, 2022

      The Up Side®
      1 min read

    • Article

      Someone Cares

      Jul 30, 2021

      Someone Cares
      2 min read

    • Article

      Serenade At Sunrise

      Nov 25, 2023

      Serenade At Sunrise
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Money Box

      Jun 10, 2022

      This is not a morality tale. It’s simply a story. It began innocently enough, over a lunch of beef pho in the Financial District, when my friend Paolo first mentioned the Money Box. Paolo was a pupa of industry then, waiting to emerge as a titan. He

      19 min read

    • Article

      The Road Home

      Dec 28, 2021

      The Road Home
      3 min read

    • Article

      Every Day Is a Blessing

      Mar 26, 2022

      Every Day Is a Blessing
      2 min read

    • Article

      After the Storm

      Nov 25, 2023

      After the Storm
      6 min read

    • Article

      Our Family Table

      Oct 1, 2021

      Our Family Table
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Safety Police

      Sep 1, 2019

      The Safety Police
      8 min read

    • Article

      Low Expectations

      Feb 1, 2019

      Low Expectations
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Minnesota Boy

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Minnesota Boy - Lee Foster

      Introduction

      What is it like growing up in America? The answer depends partly on the time and place. More specifically, what was it like growing up in a mid-America Minnesota around mid-20th century? This book provides an answer to the question.

      Minnesota Boy: Growing Up in Mid-America, Mid-20th Century is a new edition and a new title for a book that I wrote and photographed in the late 1960s. The book was first published in 1970 and titled Just 25 Cents and Three Wheaties Boxtops. I was studying American Literature and beginning my writing career as a graduate student at Stanford at the time. My mentor, Wallace Stegner, liked the book and assisted me in getting an agent and publisher.

      This book is a collection of memories. It is something other than essays forming a memoir. It attempts to approximate the language, conversation, thought, images, and feelings of the era. The goal is to capture the essence and spirit of growing up in a Minnesota America of that era.

      As I wrote in the 1970 edition:

      The boy often dreamed of where his life would roam as a man. When he became a man, who had lived 26 years on the planet, he looked back on his life and created a dream, not unlike his earlier dreams of the future. Memories of his times returned, some as recent as a year ago, some as dimly distant as 20 years past, often bursting forth gratuitously, always appearing in an order that was true to a chronology of the spirit, a truth of textures and shadings and fragile moments. He realized, as the pleasures of his re-creation stretched into months, that the story belonged less to himself than to a part of his generation. Phrases, objects, and people, as they passed before him, spoke their imprisoned moments of the past, which, like a thousand genies within bottles, lay always present, but definitely mute, waiting for their proper decoders, waiting for those singers of songs who reach for the magic words and unlock fragments of all our secrets.

      1

      Wanta know my secret?

      Tell me.

      You have to guess the magic word.

      'What is it?

      Guess, stupid. It's for me to know and for you to find out.

      Open sesame.

      No.

      Abbbrrra caddaabbbrrrra. Allicccaaaa zzzhammm.

      No. You scare me.

      Scairdy cat. My name is Ozymannnnndiassss.

      No. Stop it.

      I give up. What's the magic word?

      I forgot.

      You forgot on purpose.

      No, I didn't. You scared me.

      What's the secret?

      I forgot that too.

      Shadows of two boys on a barn

      2

      Was he the white frame houses with black-bordered windows, the dusty high banks of unimproved gravel roads leading straight along section lines?

      Was he the twisted slack rivers rolling mindlessly on, the stinking split black mud of the riverbanks baking in the harsh silence of the summer sun at noon?

      Was he the tired cornstalks in harvested fields waiting for snow, the winter gusts blowing through a house even after the doors and windows were locked?

      An address in Mankato

      3

      What had become of his

      diamond kites whose skeletons hung wasting from the highest elms

      dreams stored like odds and ends in an old cigar box

      treehouse perched high in the air on precarious branches

      bean shooters with which he planned to survive in the Amazon jungles

      small two-way mirror procured with 25 cents and three Wheaties box tops

      cotton candy that sugared his face at the Shriners' Ringling Brothers' Circus

      peep sight pellet gun whose every shot counted because he had to pump it up by hand

      baby shoes cast in bronze on the mantle of the fireplace

      smoke smell of raked leaves burning on hazed October nights

      I like Cheerios because.... in 25 words or less

      fiberglass canoe whose green mark he left on rocks in the rapids when the river was low

      jar of almond boxelder bugs, black with orange stripes

      junk drawer full of junk, never to be cleaned up

      fielder's mitt suitable for an aspiring Little League shortstop

      ashes on Ash Wednesday, dust to dust once x'ed on his forehead by a priest with long white hair and black hat, who resembled the forefather smiling out at breakfast from the round box of Quaker Oats

      long reverberating gong when the Ted Williams bat hit the steel clothesline pole where the wasps lived

      enduring small mark in the swing set cement, the handprint that fit his hand less and less as the years passed?

      A tree house

      4

      Snow fell into every life. Flakes seemed sometimes as large as folded cut paper.

      Beyond the breakfast room window in the lingering dawn he saw a new white blanket for playing fox-in-the-circle, following fresh rabbit tracks, and building a cheerful snowman that would lose all expression to the warm afternoon sun. To his mother, snow was something not to track on the living room rug, and remember to adjust the draft before lighting the fireplace. He could imagine the thwup thwup thwup of wipers brushing the windshield as his father drove to work at 7am in the station wagon, its tires steel-chained like a tank. Behind his closed eyelids the high beams of a bladed road grader swung into the center of the street, trapping an unsuspecting parked car in a frozen ridge, and then continuing straight along the curb.

      He put another spoon of brown sugar on his oatmeal. Seven o'clock in the morning, static voice from the radio confirmed that 10 inches of popcorn-size flakes have fallen.

      Which schools are closed? asked his sisters, hoping for a chance to go skiing at Harvey Anderson's Ski Hill.

      When will the city block off Spring Street so we can go sledding?

      Snow was a treacherous deceiver that might cause his grandmother to slip and break her arthritically stiff elbow.

      After this winter, it's California, she said, every year.

      In the back hallway, while still chewing a last crust of cinnamon toast, he found his buckled rubber boots among the multicolored pairs on the old throw rug and pulled the drawstring hood of his heavy parka. Beanies, somehow, never completely covered his ears during the ordeal of the morning paper route. He opened the side door into a frozen Antarctic and walked with Robert Scott. His lungs ached with the first searing gulp of morning crisp air. He threw a snowball at the center of an elm tree trunk, an ashen outline before the streetlamp, but the missile fell apart like floating sand, the snow now neither the wet plaster of early afternoon nor the thick crust, sharp as a figure skate's blade, on the way home from the rink in the evening.

      Leather mittens off, his red hands struggled with bundles of paper tied by strands of twine that had to be separated and snapped a few at a time. They cut him like thin steel wires. What a morning to forget his jackknife! This afternoon, with school out, he would not forget his jackknife or his .22 rifle while walking out along the railroad tracks to the river bottom. How deep would the gullies drift in? Would the hemlock fencerows be white furrows with spiny stalks, winter's summer hay? He was never cold in the forest; he knew how to make a hushed igloo home in the hollow of a drift deep in the woods.

      Mittens back on his hands, he swung onto his shoulder, like a voyageur lifting his pack, 70 thick Minneapolis Morning Tribunes.

      In an hour he returned home, red-cheeked where the parka could not protect, fur of the hood lined with an ice cage from his breath.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1