(Posted November 22, 2009)
The above heading isn’t quite right. The program I am using doesn’t let me add the Finnish umlauts that should be placed over the three a’s in the last word. And I might be murdering syntax and word order to boot. But, it’s close. As close as a Slovenian-German-Irish-English-Welshman will ever get to mastering Finnish when attempting to type “Thanks and Happy Birthday, Gerry!” to the editor of the New World Finn newspaper, Gerry Henkel. Gerry is the kind of guy who will understand when I murder his mother’s native tongue. He’ll smile and say, “Well, dammit, at least Munger tried.”
Saturday. Dawn. The sun is trying to burn through the ground fog roiling off the river. I fire up the Pacifica and head south on Rice Lake Road through an unfathomably warm November morning. I’m saddened by the tepid atmosphere, which, to a northeastern Minnesotan like me, seems false, somehow fraudulent. Any moment now, sixteen inches of snow could dump on my head. That could be followed by two weeks of sub-zero cold. Doesn’t happen on this day. But it could. And that’s why the morning doesn’t ring true for me as I coast down Mesaba Avenue through a cityscape shrouded in dense comforters of fog.
I park the car and enter the DECC ballroom complex. I’m here to sell books at another craft show; the Festival of Trees put on by the Duluth Junior League. Throughout the day, sales are brisk. Better than last year. I talk writing and books with customers, catch up with old friends, and read short stories out of Glimmer Train magazine, one of the finest literary fiction magazines in America. Reading great stories written by other writers used to traumatize my ego; not so now that I’ve been at this writing thing for a while. I love great story telling, whether it’s my own or someone else’s.
Saturday night. My wife and I join fifty or so friends of Gerry Henkel at Norway Hall on Lake Avenue in downtown Duluth to honor Gerry’s work on behalf of Finnish, Finnish American, and Finnish Canadian musicians, artists, poets and writers. I’m a non-Finn hanging out with Finns; invited by the birthday boy himself to read a selection from Suomalaiset at the celebration. The music is great; the poetry phenomenal; Munger’s prose, so-so; but the man of the hour, true to his heritage, is humble and self-depreciating, though he does overcome his innate Finnish recalcitrance to join two dozen other celebrants in a serpentine dance across the burnished hardwood floor of the old Norwegian hall.
Sunday. Sales at the Festival of Trees slow to a trickle. I study a textbook in preparation for tomorrow night’s class at the University of Wisconsin, Superior where I teach criminal law. I sell a few more books before packing up my display and loading the car. I’m out of the DECC in less than half an hour. It’s my last show of the season and I’m looking forward to relaxing in a hot bath and reading a few pages of A Prayer for Own Meany as I unwind from a long and arduous year.
That’s essentially it in terms of Munger’s book selling exploits for the year, kids. Catch up with me next summer at a festival near you. Until then, I’ll try to entertain you with silly stories from my life as a district court judge, father, and semi-famous regional writer. Keep your eyes peeled for updates to this blog until the festival season begins anew.
Peace, and as that sage north woods philosopher, Red Green, would say: “Keep your stick on the ice.”
Mark
