WHEN I WAS A BOY, growing up in Iowa
WHEN I WAS A BOY, growing up in Iowa, all I could dream of was someday living in Minnesota. While I was surrounded by corn and soybean fields, and the poor Floyd River turned into a rip-rapped ditch, I dreamed of free-flowing rivers, of sparkly lakes and vast forests and rocky points and islands. And all that went with it. It was a good dream. Later, at little Morningside College, I added marrying beautiful Kathy Sokolowski to the dream.
And it all came true.
Nowadays when I return to Iowa I see the beauty, the rolling prairie, the wild Loess Hills, the magnificent Missouri and Mississippi. But as a boy, there was only the longing for Minnesota. Perhaps it was the fact that my Wood and Emery ancestors homesteaded in southeast Minnesota beginning in 1852. Or that great, great grandfather Col. James George raised the 2nd Minnesota Regiment in the Civil War. Or my dad and Aunt Mary growing up on the farm near the tiny village of Douglas, for which I am named. It certainly had much to do with the Wilton side of the family making annual pilgrimages to the north (Lake Kabetogama) beginning in the 1930’s, and my elation at first seeing and experiencing the North Woods. And it has never changed. I still love and have explored it all, the whole state, and have long had the joy of guiding wilderness trips and other excursions, writing books and music, and sharing that love with others. It was a simple goal, a not-very-ambitious dream, to live in Minnesota. But it has led to everything else.
One day when I was a young man in Cherokee, Iowa—a school-teacher—and Kathy and I were planning my long-dreamed move to Minnesota, I went to bed feeling low about something. Can’t remember what or why. In the morning I was awakened by the call of a loon, the booming of drums, the sound of high harmonies singing about the lakes and pines and rivers of… Minnesota. It was a song I had heard on the radio—a regional hit—and I had sought out the 45 and bought it. Kathy put it on that morning, to cheer me up and remind me of our upcoming adventure. It worked.
Yesterday I drove north from our Pine Point home, to our little island on Rainy Lake, to put the finishing touches on closing up. Kathy was not able to come. I found myself stopping along the way, snapping pictures of little vignettes and favorite scenes—a statue of good old Paul Bunyan, a favorite rest stop with a lovely stone wall of Minnesota quartzite, the infant-toddler Mississippi gathering itself for its long journey, the Big Fork river rolling over the first edge of the Canadian Shield. And finally arriving at the lake, seeing grand thunderheads illuminated in the sunset. During the drive north, I remembered that old song. I pulled over, found it on my iPhone (YouTube) plugged it into the car stereo, and listened. Over and over. And sang along as I drove. And laughed with delight and shed a tear.
I have had some good fortune in my career, have written some books and music that folks have liked, no complaints. But how I wish I had written and recorded that song! Silly, I know. But I still hear it with the ears of that young man, moving to Minnesota. Coming home. And I’m sure glad somebody—who clearly loved the state as I do—wrote it. Northern Light, the little group was called. A ‘one hit wonder’ as they say. You can learn more about them through the Google machine. And listen yourself. But what a great song—I still love it. And I still love Minnesota.
