I was at Cub Foods tonight, bagging up my groceries, when I spotted the ATM at the Wells Fargo branch and decide to withdraw some cash. As I waited for the transaction to go through, I glanced at a stray ATM receipt sitting atop the machine. And boy, was it more interesting than I expected:

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Rick LeBlanc of Hermantown surpassed tradition by biting the head off not just his first smelt, but about two dozen others, too, at the Lester River on May 5, 1983. (Duluth News-Tribune file photo)

At this time of year, 20 or 30+ years ago, the hot topic in Duluth and Superior would have been the status of the smelt run.

Duluth’s mostly-vanished smelting tradition has been discussed on Perfect Duluth Day at least once before. It’s been a frequently requested item for the News Tribune Attic to cover.

So, by popular demand, the latest post in the News Tribune Attic includes a bunch of photos and a couple contemporary accounts of smelting in Duluth in the early 1980s. Enjoy!

With the grand opening of Amsoil Arena tonight, the News Tribune Attic this week has been featuring a look back at its predecessor, the Duluth / DECC Arena, with photos and a timeline of notable events:

Photo gallery, early 1960s – grand opening in 1966

Photo gallery, grand opening program / brochure

Photo gallery, 1966 – 1975

Photo gallery, 1975 – present and timeline

Time and space prevented the inclusion of every notable concert and event held at the Arena in the timeline, but we’d still like to hear your stories and memories. If you think something else should be included, please post your Arena recollections in comments here or at the Attic site. Keep in mind, the focus is on the Arena, not the Auditorium.

Tugs try to free the freighter Socrates from the sandy shallows of Park Point on Nov. 22, 1985. The ship had run aground several days earlier during a strong storm. Crowds of onlookers flocked to Park Point to watch in the days after the ship got stuck. (Photo by Charles Curtis / News-Tribune)

Many more photos and stories about the Socrates are posted in the News Tribune Attic.

It took a few days to pull together, and the link was kind of buried in the Upset Duluth thread, but in response to demand a gallery of portraits has been started over at the News Tribune Attic. It includes the 1995 photo above, by the News Tribune’s Bob King, of a Superior resident concerned about the condition of the sidewalk near his home. There are photos of people without concerns, too.

I’ll keep adding to it if there’s reader interest in seeing more.

After hearing about all the great berry-picking this year, I decided today to go on a mission to pick wild blueberries for the first time. I headed up onto forest backroads way north of Two Harbors, in search of a good patch to harvest, and then of course keep as a closely held secret. Miles off the pavement, in the middle of nowhere on a rutted, rocky, bumpy single-lane track, I came around a curve and saw this…

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I was out on a walk with the dog yesterday evening on a country road north of Duluth, the same road I’ve walked literally hundreds of times the past few years.

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Video from an Iowa sheriff’s deputy’s dashboard camera, about 10 p.m. Wednesday.

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I need to get some Canadian money here in Duluth. The last time I tried at a local bank – a branch of a national chain – they told me they’d have to order it; they didn’t have any on hand. I didn’t search any further at that time.

I’m betting some bank in town has Canadian currency readily available. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I’ve had the occasion to park in the Tech Village ramp a few times in the past week, and while I was able to exit promptly each time (unlike others’ experiences), I did notice something odd about the machine that takes validated tickets as you drive out.

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Someone just posted a bunch of old WDIO news, sports and weather promos on YouTube. Here is an assortment of 1970s-era holiday spots – lots of glimpses of old TV news sets and technology…. and a brief appearance by Dennis Anderson:

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Duluth police are looking for a vehicle that struck and critically injured a pedestrian on Rice Lake Road this morning. The driver did not stop. More information here.

Much has been written the past few days about Bob Dylan’s new Christmas album.

Anyone here in his birthplace care to weigh in?

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… that is, unless Duluth has produced any Nobel laureates (has it? Does anyone know?)

Superior native Oliver Williamson shares this year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences…. stories here and here.

I pulled up to the stop sign at Calvary and Woodland in the heart of Woodland yesterday, looked ahead, and… it’s gone!

The blast-from-the-past, decades-old Piggly Wiggly facade, cherished by… well, at least me, and featured in a PDD banner of yore, is no more! See for yourself:

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I’ve always wondered about how the window placements on this house came about. It’s on Arrowhead Road, east of Kenwood Super One. I’m a fan of big windows, so this house and its lack thereof always sticks out as I drive by.

In a way I guess it’s kind of smart, because it probably cuts down on noise from the busy street. But there must be some window-less rooms up on that second floor. I wonder what could be done with that massive blank spot in front.

Anyone know more about this place?

People may complain about crime in Duluth, but it appears our sister city to the north is having a really, really bad year.

According to Thunder Bay’s daily newspaper, the Chronicle Journal, the city just recorded its sixth homicide of the year. And we’re only in August. That may give Thunder Bay the highest per-capita murder rate in Canada.

I love visiting up there, but… yikes.

Some more vintage Duluth TV newscasts have been posted on YouTube (they’ve been there a few weeks, but I just noticed them today). Red Owl, Jack McKenna, Kirby Puckett… enjoy (though some of the news in these clips is kind of grim)…

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Last weekend was the 50th reunion of the Hibbing High School Class of 1959.

Why is that notable? In that class was Bobby Zimmerman, later to become Bob Dylan.

It appears Dylan did not show – but a British journalist did, and he wrote a pretty long story about it that’s posted on the Daily Telegraph Web site this morning. (more…)

I took a one-mile walk with the dog this evening. Litter found (and picked up / disposed of properly) along the road:

- Minnesota trailer license plate

- The back of a child-size guitar

- Walgreens receipt for three pounds of epsom salts, nothing else ($3.44)

- Note reading: OFFICE MAX

- remains of a Deli Express sandwich container

First time canoeing on the Brule River. Stones Bridge landing to Highway 2.

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Soon-to-be (?) U.S. Senator Al Franken, D-Minn.

While walking downtown today I noticed this painted billboard. It’s on First Street, east of First Avenue East.

I don’t remember seeing it before; maybe that’s because it’s facing opposite of the one-way traffic on First Street. In any case, has it always been there? Is it authentic? Restored? A reproduction?

There’s an ad in today’s paper about a “salvage stone sale” this weekend on Park Point, at 3101 Minnesota Ave.

The ad refers to a Web site. The site says:

“Own a piece of history: Brownstone, limestone, slate, marble, granite… An incredible collection of historic building elements including benches, capitals, finials, etc.”

Does anyone know if someone is pulling apart an old house out there? Is this someone’s collection of garden decorations? Just a vacant lot these sellers had access to? Are these things from old buildings here in Duluth?

It’s Grandma’s Marathon week, so runners will be flooding into town for the long, rolling race along the shore of Lake Superior. It’s an iconic setting and an iconic race.

I’ve wondered a few times since moving here, though, if there should be another iconic running race in Duluth, one that celebrates another facet of Duluth like Grandma’s celebrates the lake. My proposal: A run from the shore of Lake Superior to the top of the hill. Call it the “Superior-to-Skyline Run.” Short, simple and steep. Let’s start crowning Duluth’s Kings (and Queens) of the Hill.

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I have some questions about various “Howards” in the Duluth area, and I’m hoping someone on PDD can provide the answers:

1. What is/was the “Old Howard Mill” referred to in Old Howard Mill Road?

2. Why does Old Howard Mill Road have two parts so far apart (see Google map excerpt above)? One segment is north of Glenwood Street, and the other is across the Northland Country Club and a bit farther, in what would be… the Congdon neighborhood? Hunters Park? Not quite sure. In any case, why the gap? They don’t even seem to line up.

3. Howard Gnesen Road: It goes up to Gnesen Township, so that half makes sense (Gnesen Township was named for a city in Poland, by the way). But what does the Howard refer to? Is there a connection to the Old Howard Mill?

I think that exhausts my Howard question file. Can anyone out there provide some info?

I moved to Duluth in September 2006. Almost a year ago, I wrote a post about words and phrases that seemed unique to Duluth and/or the region. At that point, most seemed pretty odd to me; none had entered my vocabulary.

But I realized this week that at some point in the past few months, I’ve started regularly using one of those language quirks – adding “the” before road names. As in, “Oh, yeah, I saw that house, too – out there on the Rice Lake Road.”

It’s interesting how something little like that really makes you feel grounded in a place.

A couple years ago I was out for a walk and noticed this section of sidewalk at the corner of Grand View Avenue and 17th Avenue East. I liked the nice touch of stamping the street name in the sidewalk, and I was impressed at the “1926″ date – meaning this concrete had survived (with a crack, but still survived) more than 80 cold winters, hot summers and annual freeze-and-thaw cycles in Duluth.

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I was driving down Lake Avenue yesterday morning when I noticed a kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old, who – in my opinion – had just intentionally chucked an old basketball down the hill from about Fifth Street.

For a brief moment, the ball and I were traveling side-by-side (the ball, unfortunately, going against traffic in the uphill lane). When I stopped at the four-way stop at Fourth Street, the ball, of course, kept on going. I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw the kid jumping up and down – again, I think in joy at watching the thing sail downhill, and not in protest of an unfortunate lesson in physics and topography.

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