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.

(more…)

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:

(more…)

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?

(more…)

… 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:

(more…)

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)…

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

I live within earshot of ALL the noise going on around the airport this week as the 148th Fighter Wing conducts some training exercises.

I’m used to all the military fighters and other planes overhead, and I still enjoy looking up into the sky to see them.

But sometime last night, I groggily woke up to what sounded like bugles playing over a tornado siren. I wasn’t sure if I had been dreaming until just now, when (in a fully awake state) I heard it again – and it was clearly coming from over by the airport. I’d never heard it before last night.

The sound is a constant tornado siren noise, with a few overriding bursts of what sound like bugles playing a melody of 8-12 notes. The whole thing lasts maybe 45 seconds. I’d like to know what that sound signals to the military personnel. Does anyone out there know?

A travel article / narrative about Duluth was posted today on the Chicago Tribune Web site; it looks like it might be slated to run in Sunday’s paper.

The writer includes lots of local businesses and sights. There are some factual errors, but those aside it’s fun to see how others see us.

Unfortunately, it appears there are no photos with the article (the picture with this post was taken by me from Enger Tower in late summer 2006).

The sad story of the “Honking Tree” got national media play in Canada last night on CBC Radio’s “As It Happens.” I’m not sure if the segment was included in the edited-down version of the show that airs on MPR.

The tree segment is a few minutes in; you have to wait through a couple of other segments.

Takk for Maten, the Scandinavian cafe, is tentatively set to reopen May 15 in the former DAC deli space in the Tech Village, on Superior Street next to Pizza Luce. The cafe used to be on Lake Avenue just above Superior Street, until an unfortunate steam pipe incident in January.

Takk for Maten (Norwegian for “thanks for the food”) will occupy the space during the day. At night, tentatively starting in June, it will be home to Kippis (Finnish for “cheers”), a full-service tapas bar.

(more…)

I spotted this sign along Wisconsin Highway 13 between Ashland and Mellen a few weeks ago, right before the spring elections in Wisconsin.

I got a kick out of so many things about the sign – the use of “Spud” as the primary name, the (afterthought?) addition of “AKA Ryan Collins,” the use of scrap wood and (probably) leftover purple paint, nailing the sign right on a tree trunk… Small-town, north woods campaigning at its best. Well, except for that whole nailing to a tree trunk thing. I’m not a big fan of that.

Apparently Spud won a seat on the town board (scroll to the bottom). Godspeed, Spud – I hope you serve the Town of White River well.

Until I find some other outlet for the cool history stuff I find, the Attic’s loss is PDD’s gain. So here, for your enjoyment, is a video from YouTube showing clips of the Mr. Toot and Captain Q kids’ shows from -- I’m guessing -- the early 1960s on what was then WDSM, now KBJR.

Best parts: The starstruck kids introducing themselves to Mr. Toot at the beginning (Peggy, we heard you already!), and Captain Q’s parrot (Angus Mc—--?) helping him pitch Arrowhead milk.

Thanks to YouTube user NorthlandSports, who has posted a number of other vintage Duluth TV clips, including this 1975 KBJR newscast that was featured a few weeks back on the Attic.

This weekend I’ll be hanging drywall in my humble home, and there is a little compartment upstairs that will be sealed up for good (or, at least until the house is remodeled again or demolished. It was closed up for about 40 years before I got to it).

I’m going to get a shoebox-sized plastic container and create a time capsule to place in that little compartment.

Already slated for the capsule: a newspaper, a few coins, and some photos of the house and neighborhood.

Any suggestions on some small things to add that would be cool to find a few decades from now?

I ventured out to the brand-spanking-new Menards in Hermantown today. I wandered through about half the store, and around every corner the same thought crossed my mind: Holy cow, this is so spookily identical to the West Duluth Menards, I’m expecting to see the I-35 viaduct in front of me when I walk out the door.

Now, I know big chains have cookie-cutter stores, but if you go from, say, one Target to another, there generally are some pretty significant differences in layout, displays, etc. The big, new Menards in my Wisconsin hometown is very different from the West Duluth store. But that’s not the case in Hermantown. It’s eerie. Everything I saw – pet supplies, seeds, insulation, garage-door openers, checkout lanes – was in exactly the same proximity to each other as in the West Duluth store. There are a few cosmetic differences – but not much.

What makes this even more odd is that – correct me if I’m wrong – the West Duluth store was adapted to fit the old Shoppers City structure, so conceivably that should have been kind of a unique setup in the Menards chain. Maybe the company really liked it and wanted to duplicate it. In any case, go see the identical twin Menards for yourself.