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.

Naughty- naughty on the Danube...

Written by Jim Heffernan for the Duluth News Tribune on Saturday, April 17, 2021

When my kids were kids and misbehaved in some small way, I would sometimes employ the age-old hand signal for “naughty-naughty” (shame on you hand gesture).

 

You probably know it: You make fists with both hands with the index fingers extended, as in pointing, and then repeatedly rub one index finger along the other. Somehow, through the ages, this hand signal has survived as the sign for minor misbehavior that I, and probably others, call naughty-naughty.

 

It’s handy, and most everyone comes to understand it as the light-hearted signal for minor family infractions. If a child commits major infractions, like burning down the house, this is not the signal to use. But if the child spills his or her milk by being obstreperous at the breakfast table, well, one extended index finger sawing the other works just fine, along with a dishrag to clean up the mess.

 

The nice thing about it is that, for fun, it can extend into teen years and even young adulthood, just as a joke. Nothing need be said, the gesticulation says it all.

 

There have been many naughty-naughties in my own life, like the time in 10th grade world history class when the teacher asked me to name Alexander the Great’s horse and I answered, “Silver,” causing uproarious laughter in the classroom. We were wild teens back then. It was a regular blackboard jungle.

 

I believe my grandchildren are now aware of the naughty-naughty hand signal too, even if they don’t flash it yet. It’s sort of a family tradition, I suppose. Maybe it’s one of yours too.

 

But I hadn’t displayed the naughty-naughty much in recent years. Kids grown and on with their own lives, flashing the sign to their own children and so on down through the generations.

 

Still, I believe it’s an American tradition worthy of propagation and mention, even if only in a midwestern newspaper.

 

You wonder though (at least I do), is it only an American tradition? Maybe it’s understood beyond the land of the free and the home of the braver than me. Here’s some evidence.

 

A couple of years ago we signed up for a European river cruise that took us up the Danube from Budapest to Vienna and on through various quaint towns in Germany and ending in Amsterdam, Holland. For the record, they switch rivers at the north end of the voyage, even plying the fabled Rhine.

 

I have cruised on big boats and river cruise boats, and like the latter the best. A couple hundred people vs. a couple thousand-plus. You get to know some fellow travelers pretty well on the river boats and become acquainted with some members of the crew too — friendly young people who serve the mostly American guests with a smile while spouting various degrees of knowledge of the English language.

 

You’d never need to flash the naughty-naughty to them, even if they might know what it means. If I thought about it I’d assume they wouldn’t. American tradition, possibly just Midwestern. Maybe just me. Who knows?

 

Segue to the shipboard cocktail hour one pleasant afternoon on the Blue Danube, which actually looks kind of brown up close. I was standing at the bar in the vessel’s cocktail lounge waiting for friends to show up so we could take a table and have a libation before dining.

 

The bartender was a cheerful young woman, maybe in her mid-20s, of unknown national origin to me, who was handling the horseshoe-shaped bar alone. I was alone at the bar too. She spoke English quite well but, of course, in what used to be called broken. I couldn’t tell exactly what that accent represented but, being in Germany, I naturally assumed she was German.

 

As I chatted with her briefly, she was filling drink orders for waiters serving other travelers seated at tables throughout the spacious cocktail lounge. Suddenly, in engaging with one of the tray-bearing waiters, she became very agitated over a drink mistake or something. She angrily rebuked the waiter in a language I didn’t understand but assumed was German. The waiter, thoroughly chagrined, turned on his heel and resumed serving travelers.

 

She then turned to me again, smiling. Kerfuffle over. But to kid her a little I clenched my fists, index fingers extended, and rubbed one index with the other. I didn’t know if she’d understand what it meant, but took a chance. She grinned and seemed to recognize it right away.

 

“Do you know what that means in German?” I ventured.

 

Her response was quick. “I know what it means in Polish.”

 

Oh, my…travel can be so broadening.

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