Happy B-day America; let’s not blow it (up)...

Photo source: MPR/ Remembering
Dululth's Infamous 1988 fireworks explosion/07-04-18

Written By Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/7-4-26

 So, we’re 250 years old today. America, that is. Pretty old by American standards, not very old by European standards and those of some other civilizations.

 

And not really very old by MY standards. Here’s why:

 

My paternal grandfather — pay attention here — MY (there goes that upper case again) grandfather was 21 years old when America celebrated its centennial in 1876. He was born in 1855.  There were people around then whose lives overlapped with George Washington’s (he died in 1799), and that grandfather lived long enough to see me as a baby. Yes, I was once a baby like so many others.

 

My other grandparents were a bit younger, all born in Europe around the time of America’s 100th birthday. Their countries of origin — Sweden and Germany (that older grandfather was an Irishman from Canada) — had been around for a millennium or so, but these immigrants ended up in the United States, and Duluth, when the country was just over a century old. Ancient history? Not very. Greece has ancient history.

 

Of course, I’m no kid. America was only 163 years old when I was born in Duluth on the cusp of World War II. You can count on your fingers to figure out my age, but you’ll need a lot of fingers.

 

So we’re a young-old country.

 

Like so many other Americans, over the years my family celebrated the Fourth of July with appropriate exuberance. Flag hanging on the porch, picnic food prepared in the kitchen and placed in a wicker basket, gathering with relatives for a feast, a parade (Moose Lake, near our family cabin, always had one), kids’ rides at their carnival in the park, fireworks after sundown. America a year older.

 

Not a lot of talk about the birth of a nation, which is why we all had gathered. Oh, we held all those truths of the founders to be self-evident and got on with feasting and having fun on the Fourth.

 

This year is different, of course. America is two and a half centuries old and deserves to be honored despite certain shortcomings in our society that also are self-evident. Most of us know what they are.

 

Whew, sounds like I’m getting serious. Well, try this.

 

One Fourth of July celebration in Duluth stands out from all the rest. Ever since Duluth started hosting fireworks displays on its Bayfront, our family has attended. The tradition was started by the late Mayor Ben Boo in the late 1960s or early ‘70s and it has lasted all these years — Boo’s enduring legacy. Before then Duluth was a nothingburger on July 4. 

 

We always went to the fireworks as our children were growing up, year after year, throughout their early childhoods, teen and college years, extending into early adulthood before they married and started families and developed their own traditions here and elsewhere.

 

After so many years viewing fireworks at Bayfront shortly after sundown on Independence Day, they tend to run together in one’s memory. Spectacular displays of sprays of lights flashing high in the dark sky above our heads, the sounds of explosions on the ground as the rockets are catapulted into the firmament, huge crowds of onlookers.

 

We always watched from the same place, a grassy hillside not far from The Depot. Great spot, no longer there.

 

But one Fourth display does not blend in the memory with the rest: The year the whole kit and caboodle exploded on the ground almost immediately after the display started. It was July 4, 1988. The explosion was deafening, the conflagration on the ground as the fireworks all went off at once, spectacular, yet frightening for most viewers, especially those up close.

 

Hundreds of viewers close to the explosion fled. My family largely stayed put — we were far enough away. But we wondered if we should flee.

 

After the explosion everything went dark and ominously quiet for a few moments before the wail of emergency vehicle sirens pierced the air.  No one knew the extent of the damage or if viewers were injured or even killed. What about the workers who’d set them off? How could anybody up that close survive?

 

Fortunately, everyone did. There were no serious injuries or burns. A few viewers complained about small burning fragments drifting in the air, but no serious damage resulted from that.

 

Some 10,000 spectators, give or take, left the greater Bayfront area that night 38 years ago with an eternal memory of that spectacular, if ominous, fireworks explosion. As with me, it will never be forgotten.

 

Now here we are again celebrating Independence Day, this time on its 250th anniversary. Let’s hope it’s a safe one.

 

Happy Semiquincentennial America! Whew…long word. Absolutely supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

 

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.

Remembering the Kennedy Assassination...

Conservation Tour of Western States,
Duluth MN 9-24-63: JFKlibrary.org

By Jim Heffernan (as printed in the Duluth NewsTribune on November 24, 2025)

Last Saturday (Nov. 22) the News Tribune published an excellent retrospective on how some Upper Midwest newspapers covered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on that date in 1963.

 

Emanating from Fargo, N.D., where Forum Communications is headquartered, the compendium of that newspaper company’s papers’ coverage showed how the tragedy was reported on the day the assassination occurred in Dallas, Texas. Since Forum firm did not own the Duluth newspaper at the time, the story largely featured its publications of that day. Forum now owns this paper.

 

Thus, how the Duluth newspapers covered the assassination was largely missing from the story. Here are some memories of how the assassination was covered by the Duluth Herald (evening) and Duluth News Tribune (morning), owned at the time by Ridder Publications.

 

I was a newly hired reporter on that momentous date, having worked in the newsroom on the night shift (3 p.m. to 11 p.m.) for about a month. I was at home when the news broke about 12:30 p.m., with CBS’s Walter Cronkite in shirtsleeves somberly narrating unfolding events, culminating a short time later with confirmation that the president was dead.

 

My first instinct was to call the paper, although I thought better of it when I realized they’d be the first to know through their wire services.

 

The Duluth Herald was the evening paper at the time, staffed by the “dayside” crew. Its first deadline was about 11 a.m. and the presses started rolling a short time after that. Thousands of copies had already been published when word of the assassination came through. It was the only time that I can recall that breaking news stopped the presses that abruptly.

 

The Herald newsroom staff — a copy desk responsible for putting the paper together and perhaps a dozen reporters and editors — immediately went about starting over with the Herald with news of the assassination. I didn’t report for work until after the Herald coverage was done and the presses were rolling again with the bold headlines above accounts of the assassination together with “wire photos” of the shooting.

 

When I arrived, work was beginning on the morning paper, the News Tribune, with follow-up coverage of the tragic event, including local accounts of the recent visit to Duluth by Kennedy. He had been here in September to address a “Land and People’s Conference” at UMD. He arrived the evening before — a very rainy evening — and was driven to Hotel Duluth (now Greysolon Plaza) from Duluth International Airport in the dark blue Lincoln limousine that he was murdered in two months later. The car arrived here before the president and was stored in the St. Louis County garage at Fourth Avenue West and Second Street in advance of the president’s arrival.

 

Much of the frantic local coverage of the breaking national event focused for the next morning’s paper on recalling the president’s recent visit. Wire services provided the copy for the unfolding events in Dallas — including the swearing in of Vice President Lyndon Johnson — and Washington.

 

It was the most momentous news event I ever experienced in more than 40 years of employment at this newspaper. My assignment that day was to telephone as many area mayors as I could reach to get their reactions to the assassination. I reached perhaps half a dozen and managed to get a story into the historic paper the next morning.

 

Late in the afternoon, chatting with the copy desk editor — called the slot man — who had been responsible for making over the Herald, I mentioned that I had watched initial coverage of the assassination on television, starting about 12:30 p.m. I mentioned that I’d considered calling the paper but thought they’d have already received the urgent news.

 

“I wish you’d called,” the news editor said. The news wires didn’t alert editors until perhaps 15 minutes later, an eternity at such a time. 

 

As with the rest of the country, Duluth went into collective mourning with everything public canceled, including that evening’s Christmas City of the North Parade.

 

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.

Opinion: Stubbed toe was Biden's doing, Trump tells Martian…

 

Opinion: by Jim Heffernan- published in the DuluthNewsTribune/May14, 2025

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

 WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, seen limping on the White House lawn, said today that he stubbed his toe in the Lincoln bathroom due to a remodeling project in 2003 ordered by former President Joe Biden.

 

“It’s Biden’s fault,” Trump asserted. He assured reporters that his stubbed toe would “heal soon” and his gait would return to normal. He said the injury would not prevent him from golfing. “That’s what golf carts are for.”

 

Describing the incident, he said he had just emerged from a shower in which “I washed my beautiful hair despite an inadequate shower head” when his bare foot hit a commode that had been ordered moved by Biden, resulting in the injury.

 

Observers said this is the first time in American history that toilet routines of a U.S. president had been a subject of public discussion and concern. A president’s bare feet have never been an issue in the past.

 

It was the latest surprise incident involving the 78-year-old president who had recently completed the first 100 days in office in his second term. Observers were shocked when the patriotic president appeared in public without an American flag lapel pin on his blue suit.

 

When it was pointed out in the daily press briefing to raven-haired press secretary Dartha Vader, the session was immediately ended and media members were ushered from the White House as Secret Service personnel converged on the Rose Garden, sunglasses affixed.

 

When the area had been secured, it was announced that the lapse was the fault of former President Biden whose remodeling project in the Lincoln bathroom had discombobulated President Trump, who was still groggy after his usual three hours of sleep. “He just woke up…er, not woke but he’d just awakened,” a spokeswoman said.  “The president is never woke.”

 

The American flag pin was returned to his lapel a few minutes later as the president presided over an Oval Office gathering honoring aliens from Mars whose arrival by flying saucer after the 2024 election had been covered up for security reasons by former President Biden before leaving office.

 

“These are fine aliens who are a great credit to Mars, where the United States soon will visit,” Trump said. “Biden placed the United States at great risk by not welcoming them to the White House when they demanded: ‘Take me to your leader,’ although Biden was no leader,” Trump went on.

 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other cabinet members praised Trump for his effusive welcoming of the Martians. “You are the greatest greeter of space aliens since the cast of ‘ET’,” Rubio asserted to the smiling president who adopted a humble demeanor for the first time since his inauguration in January. 

 

Close associates of the president said it was likely the Martians were sent to America by God when the country finally elected a leader worthy of the title “leader” in intergalactic terms. “God would never have done such a thing when Biden, who was more interested in remodeling the Lincoln bathroom than making peace with the universe, was president,” an aide rhapsodized.

 

For his part, Trump reportedly asked the space visitors if they’d ever stubbed their three-inch toes.

 

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.

Duluth: Out in the middle of somewhere...

Written for the Duluth News Tribune by Jim Heffernan/July 9, 2022

So, the people in charge of promoting Duluth have come up with a new slogan: “Love it Like We Do” (even when it’s foggy, rainy and chilly on the Fourth of July?). Those of us who live here must love it or we wouldn’t have stayed, right? I have lived in Duluth for a long, long time.

 

Long enough to remember when we had other catchy slogans like “One Great Lake and a Whole Lot More” and even “Hay Fever Capital of…” of something. I forget. The Midwest? Maybe America. The world?

 

Duluth got a lot of mileage way back in its colorful history by declaring itself the Hay Fever Capital. Those were the days before widespread air conditioning, when people from the dust bowl and pollen-rife breadbasket of the nation sneezed a lot in the summer, eyes watering.

 

Duluth welcomed them with open arms and frequent cool breezes off Lake Superior, just as we welcome their successors today by sharing with them our love of, to recall another old slogan: “The Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas.”

 

Several years ago the old Duluth Convention and Tourist Trap Bureau people were retiring whatever slogan was then extant and asked the public for ideas for a new slogan. I had an idea and let them know what it was. Now I share it in print for the first time: “Duluth: Out In the Middle of Somewhere.”

 

That has a ring to it, don’t you think? Kind of exciting, combining thoughts of our vast outdoors opportunities (out in the middle of nowhere) with our multifarious urban amenities (somewhere). Never heard a word from them, making me feel like chopped liver. It doesn’t take much to make me feel like chopped liver.

 

Onward. I read in this newspaper that another group has been organized to promote community learning and civic engagement here. They plan to meet monthly at a forum called The Lyceum. Sounds like fun but is that a good name? Lyceum?

 

Of course it’s drawn from the ancient Greek venue where the philosopher Aristotle said all kinds of wise things. But to Duluthians of a certain maturity it brings back thoughts of an old theater downtown on the site where the big Maurices building now stands. After an auspicious past, the Lyceum eventually became known as “The Rats’ Palladium.”

 

When it was completed in 1893 (I don’t actually remember the grand opening — I’m not THAT old) it was considered one of the finest theaters north of Chicago. Huge stage, hosting some of the top touring theater companies of the day featuring well-known stars.

 

The Lyceum Theater had an orchestra (that’s what they call the main street-level auditorium) and three — yes, three — balconies. Total capacity was upwards of 1,500 souls.

 

By the time I came along 50-some odd (I’ll say) years later it had gone down hill quite a bit. Its imposing entrance on Superior Street was covered over and a tacky marquee placed on the front of the building advertising movies — two at a time for 50 cents.

 

As a kid I loved going to the Lyceum on Saturdays, gobbling 10-cent popcorn and sitting through four hours of second-run movies.

 

But by then the grand old theater’s reputation had slipped to the point where it was sniggered around my junior high school that the top balcony — the third balcony — was actually (cover your eyes if you are sensitive) a balcony of ill repute. This unfounded rumor was believed because there was a blinking red light atop the marquee outside. Blinking red lights used to connote…well, you know.

 

Years later, after I’d reluctantly grown up and become a fledgling journalist, the Lyceum showed its final double feature in 1966, was shut down, and razed when urban renewal wiped out Duluth’s bowery, including a tavern down the street with the oxymoronic name “Classy Lumberjack.”

 

But before it was demolished, an open house was held for people to wander at will through the theater. It allowed me to stand on a stage where many stars of the long past had performed, their names still well known then but not now. Does anyone still know who Sarah Bernhardt was?

 

Before I exited that day, recalling those old rumors of nefarious goings on on the third balcony, I wandered up there to see what it was like. It was filled with old rolled up carpets and other discarded stuff from the building.  No evidence whatsoever of a sordid past.

 

Good thing. If all those rumors had been true, it certainly could have negated the slogan “Love it Like We Do.”

 

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. 

TV ads ruled the fifties...

Written by Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune/2-19-22

I was reading the other day that some people in America want us to return to 1953 in this country. They don’t like modern society and believe the 1950s were better.

 

Many of these people are older Americans, like me, although I don’t join them in their longing for the past. Younger folks have had to be told how wonderful this country was in 1953 (and other years on either side of it) because they weren’t there. I was there. There was good stuff, and there was bad stuff, just like in any other era. Oh, and stupid stuff too.

 

I was dipping my toe into the murky waters of adolescence in 1953, eagerly looking forward to getting a driver’s license and starting high school — in that order. Anticipation of high school was exciting, but nothing in my life compared to the thrill of being able to drive. You could get a driver’s license at age 15 back then.

 

Everyone in my male peer group suffered from a condition known as “car crazy.” I’m not sure the psychological tomes list car crazy as a malady worth addressing on a psychiatrist’s couch, but it was very real in the 1950s. Some never got over it, I’ve noticed.

 

We eagerly anticipated each fall’s introduction of the latest Fords, Chevys, Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and others, making pilgrimages to each model’s local dealership to inspect the new models on the showroom floor. Wow. Get a load of those tail fins. What? They’re making wrap-around windshields now? Cool.

 

These developments were nothing short of thrilling. Never mind that nobody I knew well could afford one. My family had a clunky old 1950 Ford, the car I learned to drive in, with its shift lever on the steering shaft, three gears forward, one gear back, don’t forget to disengage the clutch and have a good life.

 

We all were told then, by TV commercials, that: “When better cars are built, Buick will build them,” but if you want to get out and about a bit, “See the U.S.A in your Chevrolet.” We were also told, “There’s a Ford in your future,” in case you were wondering what the future might hold.

 

Nobody I knew had a Cadillac, but then I didn’t know many Republicans. I grew up in Duluth’s West End (now Lincoln Park) and the fanciest car anyone in the neighborhood could muster was a Packard, fading by then as a luxury car with Chrysler still hanging tough.

 

Lincolns were favored by rich Democrats but at least they now have named a Duluth neighborhood after them. Hudson introduced “step down in design,” which meant the floorboards were sunken, and you could turn the interior of a Nash into a double bed for sleeping and whatever else.

 

There were a lot of catchy ad slogans in 1953, right when television came on the scene. You were told such things as “you’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent.” We were Colgate toothpaste people though, so I suppose my teeth were doomed to be permanently yellow.

 

Still, these slogans make an impression on you. I notice one for Alka-Seltzer has been half revived recently on television. “Pop, Pop, Fizz, Fizz” is back but without the next line of this upset-tummy nostrum’s commercial: “Oh What a Relief It Is.” Just how do you spell relief? Ask the Rolaids people. Or take Pepto-Bismol “and feel good again.”

 

Over in soft drinks, don’t forget that “Pepsi Cola hits the spot, two full glasses, that’s a lot, lots more value, lots more zest, why take less when Pepsi’s best?” Sorry, I was a Coca-Cola man myself, being a somewhat lazy kid lacking in zest. Later, when I grew into imbibing in beer a bit, I was tempted but didn’t choose Hamm’s, proclaimed as “the beer refreshing” from the “land of the sky-blue waters.” I was a Bud boy, told by an ad in plain, declarative language that, “This Bud’s for you.” Yup.

 

The 1950s was the heyday of smoking cigarettes and their purveyors were ubiquitous on television of the day. Old Gold cigarettes outfitted leggy female models with oversize mock Old Gold packages over the rest of their bodies. They danced around on commercial breaks to the tune of some ditty. And if Old Gold wasn’t your favorite brand, you met television characters who proclaimed: “I’d walk a mile for a Camel.” I wouldn’t, although I was puffing an occasional Pall Mall. (“Outstanding, AND they are mild.”)

 

Camel cigarettes were also recommended by more doctors than any other cigarette. Sure they were. They said so on TV, stethoscopes draped around their necks.  And in the ‘50s we all welcomed into our homes the Marlboro Man, a weathered-looking cowboy type personifying all that any self-respecting American male would want to emulate. Just lose a few pounds.

 

Of course a good way to do that would be to eat Cheerios for breakfast. That cereal had the melodious slogan: “Oh, he’s got go-power, there he goes, he’s feeling his Cheerios.” I guess they didn’t care if any females slurped Cheerios.

 

But enough 1950s. I see today’s infinitely more enlightened television ads feature a lot of animals and birds like penguins, turtles, owls and ostriches. Have to admit, there’s nothing like a crazed ostrich to make you want to buy insurance. Nothing. Darn tootin’.

 

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.

How are things in Burkina Faso? ...

Burkina Faso Flag (Wikipedia)

Written by Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune on May 1, 2021

Burkina Faso will test my geography...

Here’s some recent news from Burkina Faso, as reported in a Minnesota newspaper: “A Burkina Faso military tribunal has charged the country’s former president with complicity in the murder of his predecessor…” blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth.

 

Burkina Faso? I take some amount of pride in being fairly good at geography after a rough start in college, but, I’m sorry, Burkina Faso has escaped me. When I first saw it mentioned I mistakenly read it as Burkina Fatso and I thought it might be the name of a sumo wrestler.

 

Glancing around the world, I know Sri Lanka used to be Ceylon. I know Myanmar was Burma and that one of its major cities is Mandalay, where the flying fishes play, and the sun comes up like thunder out of China ‘cross the bay. (Thank you Rudyard Kipling.) I know that Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan. I know that Mumbai, India, used to be Bombay.

 

 And how confusing is it that St. Petersburg became Leningrad before becoming St. Petersburg again and moving to Florida? Well, not quite.

 

I’m not so hot at keeping up with changes in the names of countries on the African continent because it seems like they change quite often. Whatever happened to the Gold Coast? It’s Ghana with the wind.

 

Geography can be difficult. It’s a big planet. I was a kid when the Korean War broke out and I had never even heard of Korea at that time. Certainly heard a lot about it later.

 

Which brings us back to Burkina Faso. I Googled it and, lo and behold, no wonder I didn’t recognize it. It used to be called Upper Volta, not that I knew anything much about Upper Volta, but at least I’d heard of it. Isn’t that where they’re going to produce electric cars? If not, it should be.

 

Turns out Burkina Faso is located in interior Africa, landlocked, but its neighbor is the Ivory Coast. Well that’s more like it. Maybe you remember when the Ivory Coast was known as the Kong Empire (thank you Google), although to do so you’d have to be like 150 years old. Funny how “Kong” keeps coming up in our lives — Hong, King, Donkey.

 

No wonder I got such a slow start in geography. Actually, what happened was I thought I knew quite a bit about geography when I signed up for a course called Geography 1 (same as anything 101) in college. Already being a geography expert, based on 18 years of life experience, being told where Korea was at age 10 and osmosis, I figured I wouldn’t have to study and I would “ace” the course. “Ace” is the college term for receiving an “A” grade. It is also a good name for a man you once knew, run into again, but can’t think of his real name. Endears you.

 

Meanwhile, back in college Geography 1, I get back the result of the first test: “F” is a grade everyone knows means abject failure. Whew. I was shocked. Turns out the professor didn’t like it when I used my own descriptions of places and other stuff instead of those in the book, which I hadn’t read and probably didn’t even buy for $18 a pop.

 

I did so poorly that I was called out for incorrectly defining “latitude” and “longitude.” Who knew they were part of geography? Of course I sort of knew what latitude and longitude were. Everybody does.

 

I once rode through Greenwich, England, where longitude starts, at a high rate of speed and didn’t see a single longitude. But that was long after I did so poorly in Geography 1 in college. I should have stopped to eat in Greenwich and ordered a prime meridian steak.

 

All of this is a long way from Burkina Faso, I know, but it shows how important geography is in the modern world.

 

Lest the good people of Burkina Faso take umbrage at this light-hearted commentary, let me point out that we have some strange names too. I’ll give only glancing mention of the neighboring western Minnesota towns of Climax and Fertile, which are fraught with innuendo. I will point out that historical — or even hysterical — research shows that Climax is named after a chewing tobacco, like Copenhagen.

 

Then there’s Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, which was named Hot Springs before adopting the name of a popular radio program, research (guess where?) shows. Talk about fraught with innuendo.

 

So as the sun sets gaily in the west, we say goodbye to beautiful landlocked Burkina Faso, a small country with a strange name whose signal accomplishment is that it is not fraught with innuendo…as far as we know.

 

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. 

Memories of Mondale include Piedmont Heights 'attack' ...

Walter Mondale,1977 (Wikipedia)

Written by Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune on April 20, 2021

"I was, in a sense, present at the creation of Mondale as a nationally significant political leader."  

Like every other high-level Minnesota politician, Walter Mondale visited Duluth quite often during his active years, almost always calling on the state’s third-largest newspaper here in Duluth.

 

In my various newsroom roles at the News Tribune (and Duluth Herald before it was discontinued), I met him many times, causing me to reflect on those times this week when the former vice president, past Minnesota U.S. senator, ex-Minnesota attorney general and affable human being died at age 93.

 

I was, in a sense, present at the creation of Mondale as a nationally significant political leader when he was appointed in 1964 to the U.S. Senate.

 

Hubert Humphrey had resigned from the Senate when he accepted President Lyndon Johnson’s offer to be his running mate in the 1964 election. It was up to then Minnesota Gov. Karl Rolvaag to appoint a successor to Humphrey and he chose Mondale, Minnesota’s attorney general.

 

Humphrey, Rolvaag, Mondale and several others, such as Eugene McCarthy and Orville Freeman, were the stalwarts of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party at the time.

 

Upon being appointed, Mondale, as was often the case for politicians, made a quick flying trip around the state, visiting Duluth and other major cities. Rolvaag accompanied him. If memory serves, it occurred on a Saturday and I was working weekends as a reporter early in my career.

 

Mondale’s retinue set up a media conference in a room off the ballroom in Hotel Duluth (now Greysolon Plaza) and we were all there — the television reporters and photographers, maybe a radio journalist or two and me. It was the first time I’d met Mondale.

 

The future senator was seated behind a desk, waiting as the TV crews set up their lights and got their bulky equipment situated. It was a complicated process in those pre-digital days. Finally they were ready, the bright lights went on and suddenly Mondale called a halt and waved to an aide to dash over and put makeup on his face, in those days needed for appearing healthy on TV. It’s my most vivid memory from that encounter.

 

All I carried was a pen and reporter’s notebook, and after talking briefly to Mondale I stood back to let the broadcasters do their thing. Glancing around the room I noted Gov. Rolvaag standing alone in a corner taking it all in, being ignored. Press all around, he the state’s governor in their midst, and no one was paying attention to him, Mondale being the star of the day.

 

I recall feeling kind of sorry for Rolvaag, so I went over to him, notebook in hand, and interviewed him. I don’t recall if Rolvaag made my story.

 

But as we all are reminded this week, Mondale went on to become a distinguished senator, vice president in the Jimmy Carter administration, unsuccessful candidate for president in1984, ambassador to Japan in the 1990s and revered pundit in recent years.

 

Mondale visited Duluth quite often as vice president, and this anecdote involving him was told me. I did not witness it. Mondale was a close friend of the late Duluth attorney Harry Munger, a long-time DFL activist and younger brother of the legendary Willard Munger, “Mr. Environment” in the Minnesota Legislature for decades. Mondale and Harry Munger were fishing partners.

 

Harry Munger told me this story: Mondale was visiting Munger’s Piedmont Heights home one bitterly cold winter night during his vice presidency. Several other guests were invited, all arriving by car. Of course, as vice president, Mondale had Secret Service protection.

 

As the guests and Mondale gathered inside, Secret Service agents were outside on alert when they were startled by the sudden starting of vehicles and rumbling of engines in cars parked near them. They were unaware of those once-popular devices that would automatically warm up an unoccupied car in cold weather. The agents thought something was amiss, until it was explained that the cars started automatically and that they were not under attack.

 

Welcome to northern Minnesota in winter, Secret Service.

 

Finally, I had a gratifying remote contact with Mondale at the time of my retirement from active employment at the News Tribune in 2005. A colleague quietly contacted Mondale and asked him to record a message of good wishes upon my retirement. I didn’t know the former vice president THAT well, but Mondale took the time to do it, and the recording was played at a retirement gathering.

 

I doubt that Mondale recalled that I was the young Duluth journalist who reported on his appointment to the Senate 41 years earlier, but I’ll never forget that he was kind enough to wish me well as I moved on with my life.

Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer who still writes a column. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.