After a humbling, fumble-crazed loss in this weekend’s New Orleans-Minneapolis referendum, I suppose there is little else for the people of Minnesota to do but that which they have done for generations: crawl into a darkened, frozen teepee with the St. Paul poet Paul D. Dickinson, and read poetry and drink Hamm’s beer until April.
I am depicted here doing just that. Note the silk scarf and far-off look of consternation. It’s a way of life, reader!
Photo by Cyn Collins.
This one’s for you, pikop.
There isn’t much else to do.
Were I to have a teepee and a poet on hand I would gladly do the same thing.
Being a Minnesota sports fan is one of the easiest, yet most difficult things about my life. Aside from my trips to the MLB World Series as a one/five year old to watch the great #34— “Tirby Puttet” (I was a five year old with minor pronunciation problems), I have only had a lifetime of woes and heartbreaks in my sporting life.
However, I have such a special tie to these sports teams. It doesn’t matter that the richest owner in baseball refuses to spend a little cash to get a big name. It doesn’t matter if my favorite basketball team is always “rebuilding”. It makes no difference to me that the purple and gold have lost five straight NFC championships and have lost in all four of their Super Bowl appearances. I might always be a little bit bitter that the greatest hockey state in the country lost their team to Dallas, but I will stand by the new ice skating christmas trees until I die…or until they move to Arkansas.
I raise a glass to all of the Minnesota sports fans—
Skol.
