When ya gotta go, ya gotta go...

Portrait at about 102-103
(Wikipedia)

Written by By Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/April 4, 2026

 I’ve been around Duluth for a long, long time — dipping a teensy-weensy toe in the final weeks of the 1930s and an old toe in the 2020s. That’s parts of 10 decades, although I’m not 100 years old…yet. I’ve seen a lot of Duluth history, much of which has understandably, even deservedly, been lost on younger generations of Duluthians.

 

Take Albert Woolson, for instance. Some local folks today likely never heard of him. He was the last surviving member of the Union Army during the Civil War. He lived here and died in Duluth in 1956 at the age of 107 or 109 — nobody was ever quite sure of his exact age. He was young when he served, doing duty as a drummer boy.

 

For a time back then he was probably Duluth’s most famous person. Coincidentally, he was a Central Hillside neighbor of today’s most famous ex-Duluthian, Bob Dylan. When Bob was a child, his family, the Zimmermans, lived a few doors away from the aged Woolson. 

 

I saw Woolson a few times in his final years. He visited old Lincoln Junior High School for Memorial Day assemblies a couple of times when I was a pupil. The principal presented him with a box of cigars in appreciation. He also was feted in Superior Street parades late in his life, always wearing a dark suit coat, festooned with various medals, and a military-style cap.

 

Why all this now? A few weeks ago, in this newspaper’s Bygones column an item from way back in 1956 reported that Woolson smoked a few cigars while being treated in St. Luke’s Hospital for lung congestion. Nothing like a good cigar to treat lung congestion, I always say. The celebrated centenarian died later that year.

 

Whenever I am reminded of Albert Woolson, I am also reminded of a story once told me by an older friend in the Duluth news media that I think of whenever I pass by the statue of Woolson outside the St. Louis County Depot in downtown Duluth, depicting him as an old man seated with a cane in his hand.

 

Here is that story as I recall it being told to me (the historical perspective is mine):

 

It was an election year, and, as usual, American politics was a main subject in the 1956 news. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was running for a second term. Democrats would re-nominate Adlai E. Stevenson, former governor of Illinois, to challenge Eisenhower as he had four years earlier and, of course, lost. His running mate would be Sen. Estes Kefauver (pronounced KEE -foffer or kee-FOFFER, take your pick), a prominent Tennessee politician who was strong on fighting organized crime.

 

Seeking support on the campaign trail, Kefauver came to Duluth where he was warmly greeted by local Democrats who came up with a bright campaign idea: Bring Kefauver to the hospital to visit the last survivor of the Union Army in the Civil War, demonstrating the candidate’s deep respect and concern for this great American veteran and so on and so forth blah, blah, blah. Bring the press and never mind that Kefauver represented a Confederacy state.

 

They brought the press — the newspaper, TV, radio, all they could muster, including the reporter who passed this story on — and assembled in the hospital hallway to document the visit of this esteemed U.S. senator-cum maybe U.S. vice president with the ailing centenarian and last Union army veteran of the war between the states.

 

Unfortunately, Woolson, very hard of hearing, apparently was not aware of exactly who was coming to visit, or if he knew at all that a visit was imminent. When the moment arrived, Senator Kefauver entered the Woolson hospital room, local Democrats and members of the press watching nearby.

 

Woolson looked up at the approaching visitor and said, “Thank heaven you’re here doctor, I haven’t had a bowel movement in three days.”

 

Kefauver’s and the press’ reaction were not reported to me (nor was it reported to the pubic), and Woolson lasted only a few more months. He was given a huge funeral in the National Guard Armory on London Road, with special written condolences from President Eisenhower, who regretted he could not attend. Of course.

 

Today, as I occasionally walk by the statue of a seated Woolson outside the Depot in downtown Duluth, I reflect on that old hospital visit story and wonder what exactly it is he is sitting on. Three days can cause quite an explosion.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org. 

The life and times of Bomba the Jungle Boy...

Bomba the Jungle Boy,1949 movie/source: Wikipedia

Written By Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/3-7-26

 When actor Johnny Weissmuller, the first sound-movie Tarzan, got too old and corpulent to continue playing the loincloth-wearing Lord of the Jungle, the studio cast the boy who played his son “Boy” (the boy’s name was Boy) in the lead role in a new jungle-based film franchise called “Bomba the Jungle Boy.”

That was where the Boys were.

 

Boy was portrayed by young actor Johnny Sheffield, who grew up in the film jungle with Tarzan and wife Jane, and who added the chimp Cheeta to the family for chump change. But by the late 1940s-early ‘50s Boy was a strapping youth who could handle jungle evil doers and swing from trees, swim with crocodiles and befriend elephants and chimpanzees, just like Tarzan had done. Welcome to the world of Bomba, his new name.

 

I guess there were half a dozen or so Bomba the Jungle Boy movies, and I was watching one of them on a hospital maternity ward TV when my daughter was born. This was in the ‘70s just before the era when prospective fathers were allowed in the delivery room to accompany their wives as they laboriously produced their child. 

 

So, after spending several hours before the big birthing moment with my wife as she endured the pains of impending delivery known as “labor,” when the water had broken and the child was about to come, the hospital staff wheeled her into the delivery room and shunted me off to wait in the TV room with a couple of other expectant fathers and Bomba the Jungle Boy on the TV screen.

 

This is a pretty nervous time for the expectant father but a lot easier than the role of the expectant mother. So, I leaned back in a TV room chair and watched the redoubtable Bomba do his stuff to fight jungle evils in darkest Africa or maybe on a Hollywood studio back lot — most likely the latter.

Then suddenly there was an interruption. “You are the father of a baby girl,” a smiling nurse said as she beckoned me into a nearby room where the new mother and our newborn daughter, wrapped in swaddling cloths, were waiting. I won’t go into describing that wonderful, touching moment. So many have been through it. It’s true love at first sight.

 

But what about Bomba the Jungle Boy? Not that I cared, but the baby’s arrival interrupted my watching it in the fathers’ TV room and despite the passage of time (try five decades) I never forgot what I was doing when I found out I was a father.

 

Segue now to the present, to the middle of a recent night. Sleepless around 4 a.m. (it happens), I rolled out of bed and made my way to the living room television, tuned it into Turner Classic Movies and there, at long last, was Bomba the Jungle Boy, the first time I’d seen him since the birth of our daughter.

 

I can’t be sure it was the same movie (there were several Bomba movies), but it brought back the memory of that day so long ago. Over the years I have often told this story — that I remember watching a Bomba the Jungle Boy movie when I first became a father. It impressed no one.

 

But I find it fun to revive Bomba this way.  We’re a couple of generations beyond Bomba and Tarzan and that whole era when Hollywood shoveled superficial nonsense adventure into the theaters of pre-TV America, films to be picked up decades later and shown on TV in the middle of the night.

 

I’m not sure my daughter, the girl born to us that day, is aware of this tale. She’ll be able to read it now. She got a brother almost three years later (they still weren’t inviting fathers into the delivery room) so I repaired to the maternity ward TV room again. His arrival was less dramatic— no Bomba the Jungle Boy, no lions or tigers or bears. (What? There are no bears in Africa? Oh my.)

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org. 

From Don du Lac to Miller Trump Highway, this isn't dreamy...

Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/2-27-26

I had a crazy dream the other night. Come to think of it, they’re all crazy. I usually forget my dreams shortly after I wake up, but I remembered this one because…well, because…oh, you’ll see.

 

The dream was set in Duluth’s near future, around 2029 I’d guess. In it I was driving my car around Duluth, no particular destination involved. It used to be called “a ride.”  I was out for a plain old ride.

 

But being in the future, it revealed a different Duluth. Many Duluth scenes had somehow changed. Like Canal Park and the Aerial Lift Bridge. A sign said Canal Park had been renamed Trump Lakeside Park and the lift bridge was now the Donald J. Trump Aerial Lift Bridge.

 

Hmmm.

 

Continuing my drive, I made my way along Duluth’s main drag, Superior Street, but noticed all the signs designating the street said it was now called Donald J. Trump Superior Way. Boy, that was a surprise. It’s been called Superior Street for 150X years.

 

Driving along the newly named street (or “Way”) I noticed what had always been called the NorShor Theater looked different. I’ll say. The marquee now proclaimed it was the — need I write it out? — The Donald J, Trump NorShor Theater. Nearby was the brightly lit Don du Luth Casino.

 

I began seeing a Trump trend in this dream-world look at the future.

 

Proceeding along Donald J. Trump Superior Way, I glanced at the complex we call the DECC — Duluth Entertainment Convention Center. No longer. It was now called the DTECC — the Donald Trump Entertainment Convention Center. The complex included the Trump Symphony Hall and the DJTAA — you guessed it: the Donald J. Trump Amsoil Arena.

 

Stirring in my sleep, I began to sense a pattern here.

 

Continuing my dreamy drive, I curved with the road around the Point of Rocks (surprisingly they were still called that) and found myself entering what was once known as the West End, but became Lincoln Park a few years ago. No more. It was now called Trump Park, switching American presidents. Lincoln is so old hat, my dream indicated.

 

A little farther along, there was the entertainment/restaurant/sports complex known as Clyde Iron. Not any more. It will come as no surprise to readers of this that in my dream it was called “Trump Iron.” Who cares? Might as well name it after a president instead of this Clyde guy, whose full name was Clyde Kadiddlehopper, brother of Clem, right? It’s already got a Giuliani Hall, just add Trump buddy Rudy’s name. Dreams take strange turns.

 

Continuing on my westward drive I encountered the ski resort once known as Sprit Mountain. Its sign now proclaimed it was the Spirit of Donald Trump Mountain. “That has a ring to it,” my dream observed. It’s located on far western Grand Trump Avenue.

 

Glancing around in my dream, I could see atop the Duluth hill the imposing structure once and forever known as Enger Tower. No longer. The tower was now called Trump Tower at Donald J. Trump Park. Picknickers welcome.

 

I was beginning to feel restless as morning drew near but kept right on dreaming (no snoring, though). My journey was inexplicably jumping around. Suddenly I was way out in Don du Lac and the next thing I knew I was driving along U.S. Highway 53 (Miller Trunk), now known as the Miller Trump.

 

Then suddenly I was headed up another rural road, Rice Lake, passing the city’s landfill, now called the Trump Dump, which has a ring to it, don’t-cha-think?

 

Before I awakened, my dream suddenly changed seasons and I was again driving along Donald J. Trump Superior Way, Christmas decorations adorning the empty skywalks and nearby Bayfront Festival Park with the tallest Christmas tree in the history of the planet. In my dream I recognized it as Bentlyville, but it was no longer called that. It was now called Donnyville, in homage to Donald J. Trump our last president (remember this dream takes place in 2029 right after he’d have left office).

 

Finally I jolted awake around don…er…dawn, unsure if I had had a dream or a nightmare.

 

We’ll see. 

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

A brief history of cursing in the media...

Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/2-7-26

 

In the author's many, many years of toiling in the vineyards of newspaper journalism, there was one hard and fast rule: No bad words in print.   

Whew! F-bombs, bird flips, other vulgarities are rampant. What in the world is our world — America is our world, Minnesota too — coming to? In my many, many years of toiling in the vineyards of newspaper journalism, there was one hard and fast rule: No bad words in print.

Of course, many of us have been brought up on these vulgarities, which have more and more made it into the media. They were inescapable if you were born and raised in America in the last century or so. Maybe before that; I wasn’t there.

 

So last month when President Trump flipped a bird to a Detroit factory worker who’d loudly addressed him about the Epstein imbroglio, it marked the first time in American presidential history that it was employed at that level, on TV, for all the world to see.

 

Then when Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis loudly told ICE (we all know what ICE stands for now, and you don’t skate on it or drop it in cocktails) saying, “Get the” f-bomb “out of Minneapolis,” also on TV, it crossed another line in public discourse.

 

I have a long history with F-bombs and bird flipping. I am not unique. Every boy of my generation is/was intimately familiar with them, some employing them regularly, others following their Sunday School admonitions and holding back.

 

As a youth, I didn’t think girls even knew about such things, so it was only among male friends that I would engage in a bit of cursing in spite of what I’d been told in church. Never at home though. We weren’t a cursing family.

 

Still, if you have that kind of churchy background, you can’t help but feel it is a sin to swear. There’s a commandment that addresses it. It’s a chance most boys chose to take, although I have known a few who wouldn’t ever utter a cuss word. They are undoubtedly now in heaven or headed up that way.

 

I actually, and vividly, remember the day I learned the F-word. I was quite young, probably early elementary school age, when a neighbor kid (I could name him) and I were discussing swearing — you know the hells and damns and the S-word (still can’t use that one in print) — when my friend asked if I knew the worst swear word of all. I guess I admitted I didn’t, and he told me it was the F- word, using it. I was so young I didn’t even know what it meant, birds- and bees-wise

 

Followed by the perfectly acceptable word “you,” it was the standard remonstrance to someone insulting or threatening you. Some reports have said Trump also uttered that at the belligerent Ford factory worker. Of course he knows it; he’s almost 80 years old. No kid of that generation (earliest baby boomer), and those that followed, could escape it. Lamentably, I am of the late Silent Generation, just a tad older. We know it too. We’re not THAT silent…or old.

 

Moving on to the ubiquitous bird flipping throughout the same period of American life, I had a middle finger flipped at me just the other day while driving when another driver wrongly believed I didn’t properly take my turn at a four-way stop. Oh, well. He was too far away to see me stick out my tongue, so I didn’t bother. Childish.

 

An American boy was introduced to “giving the finger,” as it was often called, around the same time as he would pick up on the aforementioned swear words. It was rampant among boys when I was in junior high, although in winter it was thwarted by the wearing of mittens.

 

As Trump has shown, the flipped bird is still alive and well. But what seems to have disappeared is a gestured response, which was ubiquitous when I was a teen or thereabouts.

 

Some other kid would flip you a bird and, in response, you would signal a “same to you” sign involving raising the index and little fingers above a closed fist. Everybody knew it meant “same to you.” What happened after that would depend on how aggressive each kid was. Someone could get a bloody nose. I can write bloody here, but in merry old England it’s a pejorative comparable, but not equal to, our F bomb.

 

In my years of active journalism in Duluth, we considered this a “family newspaper.” It still is, but the family has changed, with a lot of help from the president and others, along with the Internet.

 

There was a time when the column I hope you just read wouldn’t be acceptable in a family newspaper. I’m a little uncomfortable reading it myself.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

Great Lakes declared not great enough by president...

Fake news: Trump to rename Great Lakes; cover bald eagle

By Jim Heffernan (as printed in the Duluth News Tribune editorial page: 1-10-26)

Here’s the latest fake news that’s unfit to print.

WASHINGTON — President Donald J. Trump announced yesterday that he is planning to change the name of the Great Lakes and also rename every body of water within the northern U.S. chain constituting the largest area of fresh water on planet earth.

 

Standing atop the asphalt that recently replaced the White House Rose Garden, Trump declared, “The word ‘Great’ is not a great enough word for the Lakes, which are actually inland seas. They will now be known as the Magnificent Lakes.” He added that, “Each of the lakes should also have a name worthy of its significance to the United States of America and the world.”

 

Wearing a red baseball cap inscribed with MGLB (Make Great Lakes Better), the president said the word “great” describes things like the great depression or the great plague, even “The Great Gatsby,” a fictional character known for throwing lavish parties, created by Minnesota-born novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald (no relation to Edmund Fitzgerald or Fitzgerald, the Great Lakes Aquarium’s octopus). “These wonderful lakes deserve a better identity,” he proclaimed. 

 

Trump earlier this year ordered that the name of the Gulf of Mexico be changed to Gulf of America, a move that caused anxiety among cartographers and Mexicans and rejected by the Associated Press.

 

When asked  by a CNN reporter if the word great in the acronym MAGA (stands for Make America Great Again) should be retained, Trump charged the woman reporter with manufacturing “fake news,” calling her “Petunia,” a veiled reference to Petunia Pig, spouse of Porky, whose corpulence is widely acknowledged. Porky too.

 

When a reporter from FOX News asked the chief executive if any of the now Magnificent Lakes should be named Lake Trump, he said that would be up to the new Magnificent Lakes High Commission, which he would soon be appointing. He said he will name Rudy Giuliani chair of the commission. “If he and the others think there should be a Lake Trump to, say, replace Lake Ontario, that would be entirely up to them,” Trump responded, glancing around, winking.

 

Late last year, the president sued the Canadian province of Ontario for airing an edited version of a speech by former President Ronald Reagan, long dead, in which the ex-Republican president decried tariffs. Trump has indicated through policy that he favors tariffs, including involving neighboring Canada.

 

Besides possible Lake Trump, the existing names of the other newly named Magnificent Lakes currently are Superior, Michigan, Huron and Erie.

 

“Lake Michigan has got to go,” Trump went on. “They’ve got a woke woman governor who won’t shut up.” He said that Lake Michigan, the only one of the lakes entirely in America, should now be called Lake Fabulous.

 

Regarding the largest of the newly dubbed Magnificent Lakes, now known as Lake Superior, Trump said he believes “Superior” implies that those residing along its shores think they’re better than others, “like they’re hot stuff.” The cities of Duluth, Minn., Superior, Wis., and Marquette, Mich., are ports of this largest of the now Magnificent Lakes. “They should change the name to  Lake Superb,” Trump said. “You’d only have to change a few letters on maps.”

 

Concerning new names for the other lakes, the president singled out Lake Erie, saying it sounds “spooky.” The new name should be Lake Marvelous, he said. The one remaining lake, now called Lake Huron, should become Lake Splendid.

 

The president also announced plans to annex the shorelines of Canadian territory that borders the now Magnificent Lakes. “These lakes are American bodies of water and can’t be shared with any other country, especially one whose ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is running around with our Katy Perry,” the president remarked, dipping into pop culture.

 

He said the annexation would also address illegal immigration of “those dangerous Canucks” who are sneaking into the U.S. through Minnesota’s boundary waters wilderness to compete with our good American hockey players. “We need to send in the Army or maybe the Navy. There’s a lot of lakes up there, they say.”

 

“The sooner we get these name changes approved the better,” Trump warned. “I’ve got a ballroom to build here at the White House and we’ll need a monument sculptor to get the face of Trump on Mount Rushmore. We’ve also got to find a new name for Mount Rushmore; it sounds too much like Mount Russiamore.”

 

Before heading to his nearby helicopter, the president added he intends to change the image of the U.S. national bird, the bald eagle. “Who wants a bald symbol?” he said, adding, “We’ve got to give him a full head of feathers.” Saying he knows how to handle such things, he declared, “All you have to do is comb the side and back feathers up over the bald pate. I know all about that.”

 

Film at 10.

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.

A New Year’s event that wasn’t that- all happy...

Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNews Tribune/1-3-26

This was my eighty-somethingth New Year’s holiday. I’m a bit older than our current president but younger than Methuselah (see Holy Bible or jump to last paragraph). But that’s “a lotta’ welcoming of new years by anyone’s measure. Hoping for many happy returns.

 

Of course, I was a baby and small child for the first few, but sooner or later you realize what’s happening and start singing “Auld Lang Syne” with the grownups, having no idea what it means. Still not sure.

 

As an adult, the New Year’s observances tend to run together when you look back over the decades. Lots of parties with friends, a few big events, some symphony concerts, occasional dining out, some quiet evenings at home when the kids were little. One becomes another in one’s memory.

 

I do have one that stands out, and it goes way back to my adolescence. I was in my teens in the mid-1950s. A friend and I had nothing in particular planned on New Year’s Eve; we just met early in the evening and wandered around the neighborhood in our overshoes wondering what to do. Wondering as we wandered, as they sing at holiday time.

 

As we strolled, my friend — I’ll call him Larry — revealed that in his jacket pocket he had a half pint bottle of whiskey. What? Well, it was New Year’s Eve, after all. Isn’t that the biggest alcohol consumption holiday on the calendar? Isn’t it time we grew up and acted like adults? Hadn’t we sprouted hair in our armpits already? Yup.

 

So, as we strolled through a neighborhood park, Larry took a couple of big swigs from the bottle. Offering the bottle to me, I turned him down. I was still hoping to go to heaven when my time came, and boozing was believed to be high on the list at the Pearly Gates that could send you down below. Also bald-faced lying, more on which later.

 

Larry took a few more swigs and soon began to feel the effects. He was getting sick. Oh no, what to do? My parents had gone out to a gathering of close friends, so our house was empty. I led Larry to my home, where the effects of the whiskey were taking hold to the point where he could barely stand. So, he laid supine on our living room floor, groaning and showing signs he might actually throw up on the carpet.

 

I dashed to the basement and got a large, low, galvanized steel pan used for changing oil on cars, now serving as a potential barf pan, and set it by him, hoping for the best. I figured there would be ample time before my parents got home and I could guide Larry to his own nearby home before they arrived.

 

Suddenly, to my shock and dismay, I heard the footsteps of my father coming up our front porch steps. Yikes, what to do? My dad was home earlier than I expected because my mother, the organist of our church, had to play for a midnight New Year’s service. Those old Lutherans really knew how to have a good time on New Year’s Eve.

 

Upon entering, my felt hat-and-overcoat-clad father, who would mercifully be missing the church service, surveyed the situation in our living room wondering what was happening (certainly not an oil-change), as I quickly started coming up with false explanations. This is called “lying” at the Pearly Gates, another mark against you when the time comes, I was thinking. I didn’t care.

 

Gosh, I falsely explained, Larry’s sick because he had some spoiled apple cider at home earlier in the evening. My father seemed to swallow it (the story, not the bad cider), I thought, although I doubt he did. He’d been around the block a few times and was even a member of the American Legion, which had high drinking standards.

 

Well, I got Larry to his feet and escorted him out the door and to his own nearby home, depositing him inside the kitchen entrance and letting him fend for himself with his own parents. History does not record how that went or how he felt the next day.

 

I don’t recall the rest of the evening or even the arrival of the new year. This was the era when Duluth’s numerous big industries used to blow their whistles at midnight on New Year’s and I suppose I listened to that on the front porch, contemplating the consequences of bald-faced lying to my eternal salvation when that day inevitably comes. I’m closer to that day now, of course, and have probably done a lot worse things from time to time than a little fibbing. 

 

Before I go (not to heaven or hell but to lunch), a word about old Methuselah. The Good Book says he was 969 years old when he died and was the grandfather of Noah, a pioneer boat builder. Ah, the arc…oops, ark…of history.

 

Belated Happy New Year!

 

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.