I Moved Here For The Chowder and Other Short Stories

By James Wallace

This book is A collection of short (and sometimes too long) stories. Most are fiction, one is autobiographical (the title story) and one is a non-fiction piece about an awesome cold and flu cure I came up with a few years ago. I haven't had a cold or the f;lu since July of 2003.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Wallace
• Release date: Sep 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370768998

Book preview

I Moved Here For The Chowder

Copyright 2016 James Wallace

Published by James Wallace at Smashwords

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Table Of Contents

I Moved Here For The Chowder

The Purple Suits

The Green House

The Room

The Doorman

Whitecrow

The Great American

The Ballard Bowl

Killing Colds And Flus

Killing The Coronavirus

About The Author

I Moved Here For The Chowder

When I moved to Minneapolis I didn’t think I would miss the food of Minot, North Dakota. Truth be told it wasn’t really Minot food I was going to miss; It was Seattle food. The Seattle fish and chips chain Skipper’s was collapsing. I didn’t know that then. The Skipper’s In Minot, ND was owned by the franchisee and didn’t close like the corporation’s stores.

One year before I moved to Minneapolis all of the Skipper’s there were shuttered. Also for about the first ten months I lived in the twin cities I was really poor. Finally when work started paying me better I got a craving for fish and chips and chowder and I could afford to indulge that craving.

The search was on. It would take years and it would be in vane.

My first stop was a two store chain that sold British style Fish and chips. They really weren’t British style. On a choir trip in college I had fish and chips in London, England. The chips weren’t really fries like we know them. They were small cut wedges. They were served wrapped in a newspaper football with the fish on top of the chips. The whole thing was covered in salt and doused with malt vinegar. Every order came this way unless you ask not to have vinegar or salt. What I got at that small chain in Minneapolis was American style fish and chips. I guess since they had bottles of imported malt vinegar from England they thought they were selling British style.

It was at this fish and chips joint that I first heard The Minnesota Question. I asked if they had clam chowder. And the owner answered, Why would you want that?

Why would you want that? During the rest of my time living in the twin cities I would learn to hate that question. It’s always asked innocently enough. But, it seemed to imply a kind of moral/intellectual superiority on the behalf of the questioner.

And there is no answering that question. I know. I’ve tried. Many, many times. It always ends with the asker getting a wry smile of slight glee at being superior. Being a mid-westerner the asker doesn’t show more than slight bit of glee. To do more would be confrontational. Confrontation is not Minnesota Nice.

Before I go any further I wish to make sure I am not indicting the entire state of Minnesota. I lived in southern Minnesota for a year and had no problems at all. So in truth the Minnesota Question and the concept of Minnesota Nice may have nothing to do with most of Minnesota. They really only have to do with the twin cities.

People who have only lived in the twin cities can never know how much the rest of the state hates the twin cities. I haven’t been around much in Minnesota, but I have been to the north and south of it and start a conversation with a local and real soon you’re going to hear about how those people in the twin cities are …so full of themselves. They really think they are the end all be all. The sun just rises and falls on them twin cities. God, I hate them. They’re so proud. I don’t even listen to the weather on the TV from them. They only give weather for them and no where else in the state.

I’ve had this conversation both in the south and the north. They are right about the TV weather reports and most of the other stuff. Minnesota weather, as with most Midwest weather, moves from west to east. But Minnesota has three climate zones from north to south. Four zones if you include Duluth and International Falls.

I lived with my parents in Truman, MN for a year. Truman is just north of Fairmont, MN. That probably doesn’t clear anything up in an orientation sort of way. Fairmont is on I-90.

Fairmont has a Taco John’s. The nearest Taco John’s to Seattle (as far as I know) is in Spokane. I ain’t driving all the way to Spokane just to get a taco burger and/or a taco bravo. Just to let you know. But, I digress.

What was frustrating about living in southern Minnesota was that our TV stations all came out of the twin cities. On average you had to add 10 degrees in southern Minnesota to the temperature they broadcasted. Since they only broadcasted for the cities. Up north you had to cut 10 degrees, summer and winter, from what they said. And Duluth and International Falls were 10 degrees less. But I think they got their own TV stations in Duluth.

Anyway mostly the weather report on TV would give just what was going to go on in the twin cities. On the map you could see the 30 degrees temperature difference across the state, but the weather guy/gal never mentioned it.

I don’t think the average broadcaster in Minnesota even knows they grow wheat and soybeans in the north and corn in the south of the state. Cattle in the north. Cattle, pigs, chicken and turkeys in the south.

Why would you want that? I’m thinking up north or down south they would ask that only if they really wanted to know. They would ask it only to learn.

Let me flesh this out some. Let’s look at the British fish and chips joint. I asked, Do you have clam chowder? (A simple No. would have sufficed, by the way.)

Why would you want that?

…Because they go together.

They do?, A look of slight smirking glee on his face. The do in They do? is not said as anyone you know would ever say it. It is said accusatorially. And it is said with the o in do repeated so many times it’s creepy. Even creepier is how the oo’s ascend. It’s like a long painful train whistle.

When I lived in Minnesota there were no 7-11s. Not a one. A local state wide chain had bought up all the franchises and put their own stores in their place. So I go to this chain and look and don’t find what I want and asked (stupidly) Hey, do you have nachos and cheese?

Why would you want that?

Because I want it…and because Convenience Store Management magazine says nachos are the top selling food items at C-stores (I kid you not. This was my argument. I miss reading Convenience Store Management magazine each and every month.)

Oh! They dooooo? Well, that’s unhealthy. We sell a lot of turkey pronto pups. You could have one of them.

Pronto pups what’s that?

You’re not from around here? Right?

No explanation. No nothing. And no nachos. I would learn to hate the words pronto pups.

When I was in college at Minot State College in Minot, North Dakota the drama department took a field trip to Minneapolis to see some plays. It was a fun trip. We saw Hal Holbrook in a one man show of Mark Twain, at the Orpheum, Annie Get Your Gun at the Chanhassen dinner theatre and Desire Under The Elms at the Guthrie.

A good time was had by all. As they like to say in small town weekly midwest newspapers.

I saw more theatre in that trip than I have when I actually lived in cities that had professional theatres. Maybe having been in a drama troupe and never wanting to act in a play again might have something to do with that.

But let me get this tug boat back to shore – On this trip I learned that you really can’t talk to some one from Minneapolis. They speak another language. It’s inborn for the people born there.

So like most 18 – 20 year olds let lose on a big city we wanted to score some beer. At that time Minnesota allowed people younger than 21 to buy, what was called, 3-2 beer. The reason for the 3-2 name was that it took three beers to get you as plowed as two normal beers would.

3-2 beer always gave me a headache and foul smelling stools the next day. A lot of bars in Minneapolis still have Strong Beer painted on their side walls next to their Meat Raffle signs. Both of these signs mean that you are an outsider to the twin cities if you do not understand what is written.

Strong Beer means they serve the beer that ain’t watered down like 3-2 beer.

Meat Raffle is just like it sounds.

Do you really want me to explain? I’ll only make you feel stupid. I mean don’t you understand English? IT’S A MEAT RAFFLE! What more do you want?

Back to the drama trip. We had heard that 18 to 20 year olds could get 3-2 beer. So we wanted some of that. Sometime in the early evening we asked a local guy in downtown Minneapolis where we could find a liquor store.

Do you know where a liquor store is?

Liquor store? What’s that?

Umm,…A store where you can buy liquor?

Ohhhhh! You mean a package store!

O.K. – Yeah…a package store.

That liquor store needed a definition using the same words in reverse order should have given me a clue, a decade before I moved the cities, that I shouldn’t have wanted to move there.

I’ve never claimed to be too bright. I make mistakes I shouldn’t.

Package store, pronto pups, rubber binders and mini donuts. Besides the afore mentioned package store you don’t understand any of the other things I’m talking about. All four phrases are grouped under the phrase speaking Minnesotan.

Some Natives might argue that mini donuts is not a speaking Minnesotan phrase. Cause they are just mini donuts. But, the two state fair foods you wanted to get at the Minnesota state fair (at least when I lived there) were pronto pups and mini donuts.

At the Washington State Fair the food thing you want is a scone. To me scones