Wisdom from the 42nd Page

How to Talk Minnesotan

On the forty-second page of “How to Talk Minnesotan: A Visitor's Guide” author Howard Mohr wrote (some emphasis added):

Phrases

• Yep
• Well?
• So?
• Greetings

When you travel to Minnesota, I hope you're not expecting to be met at the border by a bunch of hyper people in colorful clothing. Our black-and-white signs at the state line say it all: MINNESOTA. If a smiling group of people with colorful clothing does meet you at the border, lock the doors and don't get out of the car. They probably escaped from someplace.

Minnesotans do not favor the big hello. We do it, we just don't overdo it.

A few years back two brothers from Minnesota ran into each other at a highway restaurant near Alexandria. The restaurant keeps a picture of the brothers by the cash register. The eastern newspapers carried the story and used it as evidence that Minnesotans' obsession with winter was reflected in our manners and feelings—what they meant was that we were a cold people.

The two brothers—Frank and Gary—had not seen each other for sixty-four years, not since they were split up somehow on a MIssissippi paddleboat. It involved a young woman from a river town and a girdle—and a catfish. I don't remember the exact details. They were twenty-two and twenty-three years old when that incident happened, whatever it was.

More information about “How to Talk Minnesotan: A Visitor's Guide” (and the book itself) is available from:

• Powell's Books
• Amazon.com
• Barnes & Noble

(Penguin Books, August 1987. Paperback, 221 pages. ISBN: 0140092846; EAN: 9780140092844.)

Cosbyology

Today comedian Bill Cosby turns 71. On the forty-second page of his book “Cosbyology: Essays and Observations from the Doctor of Comedy” we read (emphasis added):

except playing. In fact, I didn't even really think—at least not words and sentences. All that kept running through my little eight-year old head was a Brazilian song—one of those melodies that only they can write. And though you don't speak a word of the language, you understand the meaning of the lyrics. They say: Play! La, da, da, de, da, play!

And I just loved to play. That was it. Play. I went to school, watched the clock all day until the bell rang, and then I played. I moved on in age and grade after grade with this theory. After school: Play.

So, one day when my brother Russell was two, my mother told me she had to go to work.

"I want you to watch Russell," my mother said.

"Okay," I said.

What else could I say? When you're eight you just have to do what everybody tells you or you get into all kinds of trouble. Old people yelling in your face makes your eyelids blink fast.

The problem was that because Russell was two years old he had to stay in the house, which meant I had to stay in the house. Ergo, I couldn't go out and play. But I had to go out and play, especially that day.

So the minute my mother left, I started trying to figure out how to get Russell to stay put in the house so I could go play. Then I got an idea. Maybe this will work, I thought. It has to because I need to play.

"Russ," I said. "You're going to be a man someday."

More information about “Cosbyology: Essays and Observations from the Doctor of Comedy” (and the book itself) is available from:

• Powell's Books
• Amazon.com
• Barnes & Noble

(Hyperion Books, November 2002. Paperback, 192 pages. ISBN: 078688813X; EAN: 9780786888139.)