Author Mark Munger (Cloquet River Press)

(Back row: John McLoughlin, John Benson, Larry Paasch. Middle row: Rick Washburn. Front Row: Mike, Wayne Rikala, Pat Pufall.)

By Mark Munger (c) 2025

Where to begin? I guess, at the beginning. Back in the mid-60s, a new family showed up at Holy Apostles Episcopal Church in West Duluth where my family worshipped. Paul Town, Sr., had moved to Minnesota with his wife, and their five children from Ohio to take a teaching job at Denfeld High. One of those Town kids (the second son and fourth child) was Michael Phillip Town. Given the size of our congregation, having a “new boy” in Sunday school was a big deal. I don’t remember much about those early days of getting to know Mike other than a scene, where my dad drove Paul, Sr., Paul, Jr., Mike, and I up to Knife River to fish steelhead the spring following the Town family’s return to Minnesota. No one caught a fish. But I remember the group stopping at Kendel’s Smoked Fish to load the Towns up on whitefish and cisco: beloved culinary treats from the North Shore. 

When Mike and I were on the cusp of puberty, my mom, the Youth Leader at the church, announced that 6th and 7th graders, a half-dozen kids from HA, were eligible to enroll in a faith-based sex education class that would bring together thirty to forty Episcopalian kids from various Duluth congregations. Phyllis, Mike’s mom, signed him up for the class but that wasn’t the most interesting aspect of the situation. Mike brought along a Baptist kid, Bruce Larson, to learn the birds and the bees alongside the Episcopalians. Apparently the Baptists didn’t address that aspect of humanity but Bruce’s mom felt it needed addressing in her young son. Anyway, Bruce tagging along with Mike was the beginning of another friendship, one that continues until this day.

Mike and I both attended Lincoln Junior High and Denfeld Senior High. Mike was a year younger. We ended up involved in vocal music in Ray Baker’s A Cappella choir. That’s where I also came to know a smart, cute, perky gal named Veronica Seger, who would one day marry Mike and become Roni Town. There were lots of shenanigans that went on in choir, including poker games beneath the Denfeld stage during concert practices, initial forays into alcohol, necking at choir parties, and such. Mike was also involved, as an offensive lineman, with Denfeld football. I was a Hunter Benchwarmer alongside Mike and his Lincoln buddy, John McLoughlin. It was that connection to John that began another lifelong friendship and my brief foray into cinema. More on that to follow.

A diversion. One evening, my parents and younger siblings were gone for the weekend and Mike, John, and I ended up at my family’s home in Piedmont. Someone, maybe Mike, maybe John, convinced me that raiding Dad’s liquor cabinet and emptying a quart of Harry’s Windsor would be good mental lubricant for writing a letter to the editor of the Duluth News Tribune. The three of us, lit to the gills, scratched out a missive to our beloved city lamenting the lack of anything for young adults to do in Duluth other than drink and party. I think we labeled the town an “unrequited shithole”. As the three of us tittered at our brilliance, fully intending to send the piece to the newspaper, we ended the evening sleeping off our stupor in the home’s downstairs bedrooms.

“Get this fucking dog off me!” a voice bellowed from my bedroom. It was sunrise when I made my way from my brother’s room to find Pelly, Bro Dave’s very hairy and energetic Golden retriever straddling John and licking my buddy’s face. “Get this fucking dog off me,” John repeated as he tried to fend off the slobbering retriever. “But he likes you,” Mike said with a wide grin, peering over the edge of the top bunk. 

The essay we’d written? It never got mailed.

About those movies. John, a big guy with a talent for humor akin to John Candy or John Goodman, and our mutual pal Dave Michelson talked me into making three films for the entertainment of the Denfeld classes of ’73 (Dave and my class), ’74 (Mike and John’s class), and ’75 (my future wife’s class). The flicks featured three brothers: the Quegleys. All the movies had similar plots: bad folks taking over the school (in the first, it’s desperados; the second features the Bagman-a creature born of nuclear waste; and the third is a Mafioso farce ala The Godfather). Mike was recruited for various roles in the first two films and ended up wandering the halls of Denfeld with a real (though unloaded) firearm. He died a pretty realistic, violent death in his brief appearance in the first film and was a resistance fighter alongside the Blackburn Twins in the second. 

Through his affiliation with Boy Scouts, Mike ended up working as a caretaker at a local summer camp after graduation. During his summer stint at Camp Jamar, Mike invited Larry Paasch and I to visit, which prompted me to start coordinating annual Memorial Day canoe trips into the BWCA. For nearly a decade, Mike was part of epic Mark Marine Marches in the wilderness (I took quite a few shots for not being able to read a map!). Wayne Rikala manned the stern of a Grumman canoe with Mike in the bow and recently commented, after he found out Mike had passed away, that the two relished sneaking away to share a refreshing smoke or two.

Mike also made many visits to The Cabin, a ramshackle affair that friends Dave Salveson, Wayne, Paul Lund, Jeff Tynjala, and I built on the Tynjala Farm north of Duluth. One of those visits nearly landed us in the clink. Driving to The Cabin over an old hayfield in a borrowed pickup, Pat Pufall at the wheel, Larry, Mike, and John in the topper, lights erupted across the field. Turns out game wardens had been following us, convinced we were shining deer. After the three drunks in the back of the truck toppled out and we explained what we were doing, the wardens had a good laugh and let us continue on our way. (Photos. Left: BWCA trip. Mike and John Benson, foreground. 2nd Photo: 1972-73 Varsity DDHS team, Mike is No. 65.)

Remember Bruce? Well, thanks to Bruce’s dad, Wendell, who vouched for Mike and helped get him a job, Mike was able to begin a career in the oil industry at the Wrenshall refinery.  Mike and Roni got married at the same time a whole slew of us tied the knot (’78) and, when the refinery closed, the couple pulled up stakes and moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana. There, the Towns had two sons, Evan and Adam (it always screws with my mind that “Adam” is the second born!) but when an opening occurred at the Enbridge tank farm in Superior, the family came back to Minnesota. Roni became deeply involved with her sons’ educations and Mike became an ardent wood worker, crafting walking sticks and Native American flutes to gift to friends. René and I had four sons and our families remained close as the boys matured. That connection included camping trips and summer parties. But the strongest bond between the Towns and Mungers involved our mutual Denfeld origins. (Photo: Mike chopping off John’s head at The Cabin. No one was actually harmed!)

In the early ’80s, a group of Denfelders, sometimes a few couples, other times, nearly two dozen folks, began an annual Christmas tradition. We’d meet for dinner at local restaurants to share stories and catch up on our lives and families. Over time, we added after-dinner concerts including a trip to the Cities to see CSN&Y, a visit at the DECC to listen to the Moody Blues play with the Duluth Symphony, and plays and comedy shows (one of the most memorable being the Duluth Playhouse’s production of The Odd Couple with McLoughlin and Michelson as the leads). Then we started taking cruises together to the Caribbean and Europe. Dubbed “Larson’s Big Adventures”, those trips gave us a chance to visit, talk kids and parents and grandkids, and rekindle friendships. Mike and Roni, and then after Roni passed away, Mike and Jill, were part of many, many of those grand adventures. After Roni’s death, Mike, who needed to get away from Duluth’s dismal winter, organized trips to Scottsdale, AZ, where his sister Patty and brother-in-law Rob lived. He made arrangements with his nephew for lodging for his Duluth pals and introduced us to the beauty of the desert. After Mike married Jill (a ’74 classmate and fellow West Ender), the Towns rented places in Oak Creek and Prescott and spent winters free of Duluth’s forbidding snows. Those forays into Arizona convinced my wife, René, we needed to buy a trailer (I call it the SAT (René’s Small Assed Trailer)) and haul our house on wheels to Camp Verde, AZ . Along the way, I presided over Mike and Jill’s nuptials in the backyard of their West Duluth home followed by a raucous celebration at the Kom On Inn. Sadly, the reception was the last time I saw John McLoughlin. He died not long thereafter. But from that loss, Mike constructed a notable celebration. When he found out John’s children were struggling to hold a memorial for John (a guitarist and filmmaker) Mike took the bull by the horns and got Bruce, Dave Michelson, me, and Scott Mork (’74) to fund the event at the iconic West Theatre. It was a very, very special night of Quegleys, stories, libations, eulogies, and way too much Sammy’s Pizza! (Above photo: Larry, Mike, and Pat @ The Cabin).

The West became, as our little band of Denfeld couples continued on, a go-to spot for shows after breaking bread at local eateries. For the past several years, Mike, Jill, and the rest of the crew have dined together and seen some remarkable shows at that old Art Deco theater. 

Mike wasn’t a perfect man. He could display, when frustrated by friends, family, or the perceived idiocy of the world, flashes of temper. But after Roni was diagnosed with cancer, beginning a long battle that ultimately ended, as Mike said, “with Roni’s last best night” (Mike, the Larsons, and the Mungers sharing stories with Roni at her hospice bedside and laughing until our bellies ached), my friend became the consummate caregiver. Gone were the impatience and anger, which, given the situation, was a remarkable shift in Mike’s personality. It was a change of such magnitude, one couldn’t help but notice and yet, sadly, I don’t think I ever shared my perception in that regard with Mike.

(Photos: Left: Dave Salveson and me in rear row. Jan Larson, Roni, and Mike. Day of my induction into the Denfeld Hall of Fame ’12. 2nd photo: Russ Ditman and Mike at Salveson’s stag.)

Many of you know I’m-to steal a Billy Joel line-a “real estate novelist”. I’ve been an author for over thirty years. During that run, I’ve written fourteen books. Many of my projects have been launched at gatherings of friends and family at various locales in Duluth. When Roni was still with us, she and Mike made every such event. After Roni’s passing, Jill and Mike continued to support my muse. Mike called in early February, indicating he wanted to buy a copy of my Finnish trilogy to gift to friends. and we made arrangements to meet at the Town apartment. After delivering the books and receiving a crisp $50 bill from Mike; Mike, Jill, and I sat in their living room and, as Mike and I sipped beer, chatted. Mike said that, while Jill wanted to stay close to home for the winter, he was thinking of returning to Arizona. No real plans had been set but that was his intention. (Photo: René, Bruce, and Mike in Scottsdale, AZ)

Not long after that evening, René and I traveled to Lake Havasu (sans SAT). While sitting by the pool at a local resort, I thought of Mike. I called him to see if, by chance, he was coming south. It turned out his plans had changed. “Maybe next year,” Mike said, “I really do need to get the hell out of Duluth in winter.” That was the last time we spoke.

While refueling my Jeep in Kansas on our return trip from Arizona, the wind howling at fifty miles per hour, my phone dinged. The text message was from Bruce: Mike had died suddenly that morning. The news of Mike’s passing buckled my knees and clouded my eyes. (Photo: Jill and Mike wedding dance.)

Ultimately, Mike was a good man and friend who, over the course of the past year, spent time with René learning the art of mosaic making. Their mutual project, a rainbow trout embedded atop an antique table, remains unfinished in my wife’s studio, though René has vowed to finish the project in time for Mike’s memorial BBQ in July.

I’m pretty sure that’ll make Mike Phillip Town smile.

Peace

Mark

(Photo: Mike, René, Karin Johnson, Kathy Benson, Chris Curtis, Jan, and Bruce.)

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/obituaries/obits/michael-philip-town-8zkeuhriw9vgwdf9pvcs

(Photos: Top: BWCA trip. Standing, from left: John, John Benson, Mike, Rick Washburn, Wayne Rikala, Larry Paasch. Seated: Me, Pat. Second photo: Mike in Barcelona. Last photo: Mike on a modeling runway in Montenegro. Don’t ask!)

By Mark Munger (c) 2025

I was raised by my parents, church school teachers, and my Scout leaders to always look for the good in folks. Sometimes, that’s a difficult task.

I’m one of those people who wears an electronic device on my left wrist. The photo above depicts the second FitBit watch I’ve owned. The first one, given to me several years ago by my wife in hopes I’d calculate my daily activity (known affectionately as “steps” in SmartWatch jargon) to keep my old man belly from getting larger, died of natural causes not long after its purchase. Never one to forget her purpose (here, keeping me in shape) René bought me the replacement shown in the picture, one I’ve now owned for a few years and worn nearly every day to compute my activity level. So, when we recently took our annual spring sojourn to Arizona (this year, sans SAT (René’s Small AssTrailer)), the watch and its charger and cord came along for the journey.

I have to admit: since Callie the Brittany is always with us on camping outings, even though we were doing motel and cabin stays on this trip, I like having the FitBit on my left wrist when I take her for walks to do her business. She’s the sort of gal who’s leisurely about her morning constitution, meaning I get a lot of steps in before my wife is out of bed. That’s not a bad way to start the day but enough background: on with the tale! 

Since we weren’t hauling a small house behind our rapidly aging Jeep Grand Cherokee on our annual vacation from retirement, I decided to drive the northern route to Lake Havasu, our first destination. René’s older sister and husband have always wanted us to see where they stay in their RV, so my wife booked us into a Day’s Inn in downtown Havasu City. We spent our first night on the road in Nebraska, after which we drove to Denver and then into the Rockies, eventually arriving in Grand Junction, Colorado the second night of our trip. I’d made a reservation at the local Ramada and it turned out the place had seen better days. Though the lobby and common areas were recently remodeled, our room was a bit tired and rundown. Still, it was clean and we settled in for the night. 

In the morning, we ate the complimentary breakfast and began packing up for the journey through Vegas, the desert, across Utah, and into the northwest corner of Arizona. While loading the Jeep, I noticed my FitBit was low on battery juice so, without really thinking things through, in the middle of a harried retreat, I plugged the watch into its charger and connected it to an outlet in our soon-to-be-empty room. You can see where this is headed, right?

“Hi,” I said, the next morning from the Havasu Days Inn, my call to the Grand Junction Ramada made moments after I realized my watch and charger and cord were still in Colorado, “Mark Munger here. I think I left my FitBit, charger, and cord in our room yesterday.”

“What room were you in, Sir?” the desk clerk, the same guy (he had a noticeable East Asian accent) who’d checked us in, asked.

I told him.

“I’ll go check and call you back.”

I missed the guy’s return call because we were off doing touristy things with Steve and Diane, René’s brother-in-law and sister. But the guy was kind enough to leave a voice message. By the time I noticed he’d called, it was evening.

“Yes, Sir. We have your watch and stuff. Please give a call back.”

I called the next morning. 

“Oh yes,” a female voice at the Ramada front desk said when I explained why I was calling, “your watch and charger and cord are here.” 

Great news! Except, when I asked how I could get my property back, offering to pay for shipping, the clerk was very clear about protocol. “You’ll need to talk to the manager to make those arrangements,” the young woman said. “She works this weekend so call back then.

That made perfect sense to me so, on Saturday morning, I called the Ramada again. It just so happened the manager answered the phone. After explaining why I called, she said she’d look for the FitBit and accessories and call me back. She never did. I waited a day and called again.

“You’re watch and charger and cord aren’t here,” the woman said. 

That astounded me. Troubled me, might be a better description.

“How can that be? I heard from two of your staff. They both said my stuff had been located and was still at the hotel.”

“We don’t have it,” was her curt reply.

“I saved the voice message on my phone from the guy who found it. When I called back, a second desk clerk, a woman, confirmed my watch was there.”

The manager was miffed at my insistence. “Your stuff isn’t here. But I can ask the person who left you the message. He’s working today. I’ll check and call you back.”

She never called. After waiting a few hours, I called again.

“He says he doesn’t have your watch.”

“What? Two people at your hotel …”

Click. She hung up on me in mid-sentence. I want to be clear here. I hadn’t raised my voice. I hadn’t accused anyone of anything. I was simply trying to get my FitBit back. I called the desk again. The manager didn’t pick up. I waited an hour and called back.

“Ma’am,” I said evenly, “I don’t appreciate being hung up on. I didn’t raise my voice, didn’t get upset with you. But this is wrong. Your folks said the watch was there. Now you say it isn’t. Did you ask the fellow who found it where it might be?”

Her patience, at an end, she hissed out, “He says he doesn’t have your watch. There’s nothing more I can do.”

“Will you ask him if he ever had my watch?”

“No.”

“Can I speak to the general manager?”

“You are.”

“Can I speak to the owner?”

“He lives in Nepal. I don’t know when he will be in town.”

I was getting frosted. “You know, this is a theft. You had my watch. Now you don’t. Meaning someone took it. It’s now a matter for the Grand Junction Police.”

“Fine. Report it. Have a nice day.”

This time, furious and afraid I might say something I’d regret, I ended the call. I explained all this to René as we biked around Havasu City on borrowed eBikes. I mulled over in my mind what I should do. Report it to the cops? Send a letter to the owner? Send a letter to Ramada corporate? Report it to the Better Business Bureau? Ultimately, I decided to enjoy my vacation sans FitBit and leave things alone.

“Dad,” our youngest son Jack said when I called home a few days later, “there’s a package here from Grand Junction, Colorado for you.”

“What?”

“There’s an envelope here, a big one, from Colorado.”

I knew what was inside. “Open it.”

The kid complied. “Why did you mail your watch home?”

I smiled. “It’s a long story.”

But the FitBit is back where it belongs, on my left wrist, telling me to get moving.

Peace

Mark

Jeff Tynjala at “The Cabin”

Paul Vesterstein leaving Europe at age 19. Note his suitcase includes his destination: “Duluth, USA.”

Proud Estonian American, businessman, skier, and longtime mentor Paul “the Count” Vesterstein recently passed at the age of 96. I was asked by the family to provide some remarks at Paul’s upcoming Celebration of Life but I find myself unable to attend due to a prior commitment. Here is what I would’ve said had I been there to bid the Count farewell.

The Count Has Left Us

(c) Mark Munger 2025

When I was a child growing up in the Piedmont Heights neighborhood of Duluth, I had the great fortune of being surrounded by phenomenal male and female role mentors. Many kids I played tag, army men, cowboys and Indians, trench ball, softball, and street hockey with had moms who didn’t work outside the home. Those moms, despite the limitations placed upon them by the times, guided us with steady hands, keeping us safe, laying down the law, making us better citizens. But for boys, it was the dads of the ‘Hood (Chambersburg Avenue, Hutchinson Road, Morris Thomas Road, and Robert Court) who left a lasting impression regarding what being a man, father, and husband entailed.

There were attorneys (my old man being one), dentists, engineers, railroad workers, steel plant guys, tradesmen, businessmen, and just about every other career path represented by our collective fathers. Some dads were heroes: men who’d served in combat during WW II and Korea. Others, like my dad, Harry, joined up but never saw the battlefield. The point is, nearly every one of our fathers put on a uniform.

The Vesterstein’s: Paul-the father; Joy-the mother; and their children moved into a tract house on the same side of Chambersburg as the Munger’s. There were two houses between theirs and ours. My earliest memories of the man we later called “the Count” (not because he looked like Dracula but because of his accent) don’t involve the Vesterstein and the Munger kids. They involve dogs.

My first pet, a big boned black Lab named Deuce, was the terror of the neighborhood. My dad had little patience, scarcely any time, and pretty much left the Lab on its own in the wire mesh kennel behind our garage. Deuce figured out ways to escape the kennel or get off leash and once loose, create havoc. His favorite pastime was beating a beeline for the nearest trash can and emptying its contents onto the ground in search of food. As the eldest Munger child, I was summoned by neighbors, including Joy and Paul, to clean up the mess. But that wasn’t the half of it.

The Vesterstein’s had an unspayed female German shepherd named Fifi whose hormonal scent captivated Deuce. How else do you explain the many calls my mom, Barbara, received from Joy imploring her to “Send Mark up to get Deuce” after he’d jumped inside Fifi’s kennel?

There was a time or two, given I was older than the eldest Vesterstein kid, Scott, I was asked to babysit. Without getting into details, just know that, to this day, Scott insists I was the “worst babysitter” he ever had. I guess the fact I knew how to change a diaper, a skill I learned caring for my sister Anne, wasn’t enough to hide other failings in the caregiving department.

Over the years, I came to appreciate bits and pieces of Paul Vesterstein’s remarkable story. While I would’ve been hard pressed to point out Estonia on a globe, I knew that’s where Paul hailed from and that he’d endured great hardship to make the long journey from war-torn Europe to the States at the end of WW II. I also knew that Paul worked, early on, for the Duluth YMCA. My mom’s first antique restoration project was buying an old China hutch (painted an ugly green and used as a file cabinet in Paul’s office at the Y) from Paul. That piece of furniture followed Mom until her passing and stands in the Great Room of my home on the banks of the Cloquet River as a constant reminder of the Count.

Along the way, two things of note happened. First, the Vesterstein Family, grown too large for their bungalow, built a new home in Duluth’s East End next to Northland Country Club. Second, Paul became a businessman, using his intelligence, UMD education, and skiing ability to start up Continental Ski Shop. Our family began downhill skiing because of the ski shop and because moms in the Piedmont neighborhood took up the sport at Joy’s behest.

Though our families were separated by distance, we spent time together at the Y’s Camp Miller, at Mond du Lac (where all the kids were part of the Duluth Alpine Club), at each other’s rented lake places during summers, and skiing the mountains of Colorado. It was in the mountains (I think at Snowmass) where Paul was labeled the Count and held court with a nefarious group of guys from Duluth including his Legal Advisor (my dad), the Sheik (George Haddad, who wore an actual Bedouin outfit on the slopes), and a host of other middle-aged men all enjoying the attention of the local news media.

One year, when the Vesterstein kids were young and I was in my teens, Paul hired me, despite my reputation as a terrible babysitter, to be his “eyes and ears” while Scott and Kirk hit the Colorado slopes. I got a free trip to Snowmass out of the deal and had an absolute blast! Back in Duluth, when I was invited over to Vesty’s new place, Scott and I would exit the back door, grab old golf clubs, sneak onto Northland, and play a few holes before the greenskeeper found us out and sent us on our way.

I helped the two eldest Vesterstein boys (Scott and Kirk) get up on water skis behind Dad’s runabout when they stayed with us on Caribou Lake. Less successful was our building of a primitive raft on the shores of Grand Lake (another summer rental) which, when Scott, my brother Dave, Kirk, and I climbed aboard and pushed off, promptly sank. Mom rescued us and I’m pretty sure we kept that one quiet from Paul and Joy.

I remember hearing from Paul how difficult it was to be so far from his homeland, the place where his extended family still lived, and recall being invited, along with my parents and siblings, to meet Paul’s brother Karl who, despite Estonia being occupied by the Soviets and being behind the Iron Curtain, had managed to travel to Duluth to see Paul. That dinner event, which took place at the Vesterstein home, stuck with me in terms of how gutsy Paul had been to leave his ancestral home after serving in the Estonian National Guard as a teenager.

Paul was there, at Spirit Mountain, the day Vice President Mondale came to Duluth to ski with the Mungers and attend my son Matt’s baptism. After time on the hill with Fritz, Paul and his family attended the service at my family’s little Episcopal church, likely in recognition that my parents were Scott’s godparents.

After graduating from law school and returning to Duluth to work with Dad, our office represented Paul, Joy, and Scott on various legal issues, including the family’s initial involvement with Benetton stores and Fitger’s. Eventually, their operations became too complex for a four-person firm to handle and we parted ways professionally on an amicable basis. Before that happened, I always enjoyed poking my head into my partner Blake MacDonald’s or Harry’s office when Paul or Joy was around, catching up on all things Vesterstein. Years later, when I decided to run for an open judicial seat, I had the support of the entire Vesterstein family, including the placement of “Munger for Judge” signs in all the appropriate places.

On a more personal note, once my writing saw print, Scott and Paul enthusiastically supported my work. That support included sponsoring book signings and launches at the Theater of the North in the Fitger’s complex. Their belief in my writing continues: I spent a recent Saturday at the Bookstore at Fitger’s hawking my fiction to strangers at the invitation of my Estonian American friends.

After the success of my Finnish American historical novel, Suomalaiset: People of the Marsh in 2004, I was convinced by Finnish American Davis Helberg to take my work to Finland. He helped arrange a tour of Helsinki and Turku for a neophyte non-Finnish author and his wife. Things went well: I met the poet laureate of Finland, was interviewed by the Turku Sonomat, lectured at the Institute of Migration and was escorted to lunch by its director; pretty heady stuff. But the real highlight was a phone call I received in my hotel room in downtown Helsinki.

“Hello?”

“Markie.”

I knew the voice and accent instantly.

“Count?”

“Yes. I hear you’re in Helsinki.”

“René and I are. But how did you find us?”

“Your mother told me you were over in Finland and gave me the number for your hotel.”

“Oh.”

“Markie, you have to visit Tallinn (the capital of Estonia).”

“We’re going there later in the week by ferry.”

“Good. I have some ideas for you …”

Paul’s enthusiasm and love for his native land, chronicled by his family in his obituary, permeated our conversation. In the end, the Count had his Estonian lawyer, a young woman who spoke excellent English, meet us in Old Town Tallin and give us a personal tour of the walled city. Such a gift!

After Suomalaiset I figured I was done writing about Baltic peoples. But at the behest of a Finnish friend, I began exploring the history of the Winter War, the Continuation War, and the Lapland War (all part of what we Americans call “WW II”) in Finland. As I researched, it dawned on me that Finland, by having to select Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia as its protector, was not alone. My study of history drew me to Estonia and the terrible, terrible price that tiny country paid during the war. Learning that Finns and Estonians share a common language, heritage, religion, and culture, I thought, I need to talk to Paul. A lengthy dialogue with Paul regarding his experiences during the war, his immigration to the U.S., and the choices Estonia was forced to make, ensued. Mind you: the Count didn’t always agree with my view of Estonian history. But he never tried to limit my artistic expression. The resulting novel, Sukulaiset: The Kindred was published in 2014. Though the book isn’t Paul Vesterstein’s story: the scenes set in Estonia; the two Estonian brothers who are featured characters; and the themes of the story; are largely taken from Paul’s own experiences and those of his kindred. The writing remains, to my biased eye, some of my best and I have Paul Vesterstein to thank for that.

As that manuscript neared its final draft, I approached Paul to assist in finding a professional editor. Over lunch at Fitger’s, Paul handed me a check, a touch of generosity and a gesture of kindness towards an unsung author. Once the book was published, Paul and his partners sponsored a lavish dinner in the book’s honor at Fitger’s. By coincidence, international musician Ulla Suoko was in attendance. When asked by the Count, Ulla sang both the Estonian and Finnish national anthems for Paul and his guests, putting a smile on the old man’s face. Later that night, the book was launched at the Theater of the North and Paul was in the audience to applaud my adaptation of his story.

I last saw Paul at my mother’s visitation in October of 2023. Age had caught up with the man who meant much to me, my family, his adopted city, and his children. We had a brief chat, during which he said, “I’m so sorry, Markie.” Only a few folks call me that.

He earned it.

Rest in peace, my friend and mentor.

Judge Mark Munger

Scott Vesterstein, the author, and Kirk Vesterstein Snowmass, Colorado

(Photo Below: Fritz Mondale, Bruce, George Millard, Harry Munger)

                                                      BRUCE WILIAM JOHN MEYER

The characters I encountered through my old man, Harry, are rapidly leaving us. Bruce Meyer, a guy I met when I was eight years old, is one of those remarkable folks.

Bruce passed away on November 22, 2024, after a long battle with lung cancer. He was born in 1933 in Merrill, Iowa, attended and graduated from Morningside College and the former St. Paul College of Law. Bruce is survived by his special lady of 33 years, Maureen Mahoney, and children Greg, Dan, Julie, Tony, Dave, and Rachel.  These details from Bruce’s obituary don’t begin to tell the story of this unique human being.

            Dad first met Bruce in law school. It was 1956: Dad, who’d received his BA in history from UMD, had been at the St. Paul College of Law a few years before he and Bruce, recently arrived from Iowa, met. My parents were newly married, had one kid (guess who) and were living in an apartment on Grand Avenue. Bruce? He was single and living in his car. Despite their personality differences: my dad, open, gruff and loud; and Bruce, quiet and reflective, the two men found they shared a love of the outdoors, an affinity they renewed after coming to NE MN to practice law. As a wide-eyed eight-year-old, I tagged along with them, sat in bullrushes surrounding a pothole north of Duluth, and watched the two pals hunt. My recollection of that day is that Bruce was far more patient with a fidgety kid in a duck blind than my old man.

            Years later, I worked for General Cleaning, buffing the terrazzo floors of the First American National Bank Building while attending UMD. I hadn’t seen Bruce much over the intervening years but knew he’d become a criminal defense lawyer. It turned out, Bruce was officing with an interesting group of fellows in the building I cleaned. The cast, if I recall correctly, included Jack Durfee (who became Chief Public Defender), Jack Litman (later Judge Litman), and a young lawyer by the name of Fred Friedman. I bumped into Bruce a time or two during my stint at General Cleaning while he worked late at night, preparing for trial, and we chatted briefly about my future and my plans: neither of which included a legal career.

            Always interested in the world, politics, religion (though I’m unaware if he professed a particular faith), the out-of-doors, and events of the day, Bruce also took up a number of hobbies. His passions included rock collecting, jewelry making, and vegetable gardening. He sold his jewelry at shows across the US, gave away heaps of produce, and attained the designation of Master Gardener while continuing to hunt, fish, trap, and raise children. He also built the rustic cabin in Lake County he called home.

As a criminal defense attorney, Bruce handled many difficult and notorious cases. When local legend, prosecutor, author, and judge, John DeSanto found out I was presenting Bruce’s memorial, he sent his remarks to me via email from his new home in Sioux Falls, SD. Don’t worry, DeSanto fans, I’ve edited John’s remarks for brevity! Here’s John’s take:

            “Bruce Meyer was a real character and good friend. Bruce and I tried at least a half-dozen jury trials (mostly drug cases) against each other. During proceedings involving Roger Caldwell, Bruce covered some early appearances for Caldwell’s attorney of record, Doug Thompson. But there was a major difference: Bruce came to court wearing Sorels and a wrinkled corduroy sport jacket, unlike Doug, who was always “dressed to the nines”. I really enjoyed trying cases against Bruce.”

Sometime in his 40s, Bruce suffered a heart attack: a life-changing wake-up call. After recovering, Bruce closed his law books and headed west, to Montana and the Dakotas, where he worked as a truck driver. As I said, the man was unique.

            Later on, after I’d become a partner at MacDonald, Munger, Downs, and Munger a guy I didn’t recognize wandered into the office. The slightly disheveled man, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, displayed a quiet, unassuming demeanor and asked, “Is Harry around?” Dad was summoned and reintroduced me to Bruce, who, for whatever reason, was back in town, ready to relaunch his legal career. But there was a problem. A little thing called CLEs-continuing legal education credits-had been instituted by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Bruce, having been off on the prairie driving truck, had a whole shitload of CLEs he needed to complete, which he started working on while encamped in our conference room/law library. Bruce eventually finished his CLEs, was reinstated, and returned to practicing law. Back in the Supreme Court’s good graces, Bruce joined the Lake County Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor under CA Bruce Anderson.

            After I was elected judge, Bruce Meyer, who’d retired from Lake County, was hired by Carlton CA Marv Ketola as an independent contractor. I spent three years as an “extra” judge in Carlton, meaning that Bruce appeared in front of me many, many times. His work as a criminal defense lawyer made Bruce a pragmatic and fair prosecutor. He was always prepared, always willing to listen to the stories of the folks appearing in court, and always ready to defer to the judge even if that judge was a wet-behind-the-ears youngster.

            I also reconnected with Bruce on a more personal level. Harry and Bruce, who remained life-long hunting and fishing buddies, invited me to tag along on their annual pheasant hunt to Ashley, ND. It was a wonderful bonding experience hunting with two old geezers (before I became an old geezer myself) and later, introducing my sons to that tradition. Later, I was recruited to be the designated driver for an annual fishing trip involving Harry, Bruce, Fritz Mondale, and Mondale’s pal, George Millard, to the Litman Camp in Ontario. For over a decade, I had the privilege of driving the old men, Mondale firmly planted in the front passenger’s seat fiddling with his iPad as the others jawboned behind us, across western Ontario to Ignace, where we caught a float plane and joined hosts Ross and Jay Litman for five days in the Canadian bush. Those drives, where the former vice-president, senator, and ambassador quizzed us about politics, history, our personal lives, and whether Fritz or Harry was the better outdoorsman, were memorable. At the Litman camp, Bruce and I often fished in the same boat. I’d operate the outboard and find fishy looking spots. On one occasion, Bruce insisted on keeping a 28” walleye. When we came back to camp, that decision drew Sheriff Litman’s ire. I was new to the protocol of the place but Ross made it clear, since Bruce had fished the lake many times before, “Meyer, you know you can’t keep that goddamned fish!” Bruce shrugged and apologized. That said, I’m pretty sure Bruce enjoyed the breaded and deep-fried wallet fillets served later than night.

            I made one pilgrimage to the Betsy River in Michigan with Harry and Bruce. We spent our nights in a rental cabin and our days wearing hip waders casting spawn bags at steelhead. Typical of fishing with Harry¾maybe Fritz was right¾there were no fish to be had. Bruce was more pragmatic. Since the trout weren’t biting, he went ice fishing on a local lake for jumbo perch. Bruce was always, even when we were hunting birds on the prairie, searching for jumbo perch.

            When Harry died, Bruce drove up from the Iowa home he shared with Maureen to attend my old man’s last goodbye. Sitting with Mondale and Millard at the Buffalo House during Harry’s Celebration of Life, the always affable, unflappable, and introspective Bruce stayed in the background as droves of admirers fussed over Fritz. As much as my old man loved Fritz, I’m pretty sure he was even more tickled that Bruce made the trip.

            After Dad’s passing, Bruce and I kept tabs on each other. Our final telephone conversations occurred this past summer and it was obvious to me that Bruce was struggling. Having beaten many, many health scares over the years, I’d grown accustomed to Bruce’s matter-of-fact descriptions of his maladies and treatments. He’d nearly died in the hospital a few years back but had, even at death’s door, maintained the same, even-keeled demeanor that was the hallmark of his personality. Still, our most recent conversations, including one where Bruce asked for the name of “a good estate lawyer”, were troubling.

On what turned out to be our final call, Bruce requested the mailing address of my late-in-life political campaign. A true Libertarian (he’d ditched his NRA membership after Sandy Hook), Bruce had no trouble writing a check to fund an unabashed Liberal’s pie-in-the-sky aspirations. I gave him the address. The check came. It cleared. I’ll miss the guy.

Mark

(c) 2024 Mark Munger

Distance. I needed some between my recent electoral defeat to encapsulate my run for the Minnesota House. I think, to some degree, I’ve arrived at a point where I can work things out, if not orally then at least in writing. Here goes.

When my opponent (who’ll not be named in this piece given she personally attacked my reputation, integrity, and legacy during the campaign) defeated longtime Minnesota Representative Mary Murphy, a woman I have known for over fifty years and a true public servant, by 33 votes in 2022, I, like many folks in House District 3B, was troubled. And saddened. And yes, in some small way, upset. But anger cannot be a candidate’s motivation for running. Instead, a candidate should enter the political arena because he or she believes that the current occupant of the position doesn’t reflect one’s personal values. I’d like to think that, when folks came calling after my name was mentioned as a possible candidate, it wasn’t anger or ego or hubris that compelled me, after due reflection and considerable discussion with my wife and others, to “throw my hat into the ring.” Truly, I believe I said “yes” because I was and am worried about the lack of integrity, honesty, and decency in our politics. I truly fear for the future we’re leaving our grandchildren in this, the greatest modern democracy existing on earth. 

I can honestly say, though I was flattered to be asked by folks I admire and humbled to receive encouragement from public officials and friends whose judgments I trust, ego wasn’t really a motivator behind my recent run for office. When you’ve served 23 years as a District Court Judge, a position that requires you to make decisions regarding the most important aspects of the lives of your friends and neighbors, there’s really no larger stage in terms of ego. Every day judges are confronted with stories concerning their fellow citizens: some tragic, some humorous, some sad, a few happy, all of which require jurists to make determinations regarding facts, honesty, the truth, and the law. I thought my public service over a 40-year legal career as a prosecutor and judge would convince folks I could be trusted to enact legislation promoting the general welfare and enhancing the lives of Minnesotans. I was naive to believe voters would see the blizzard of negative ads launched at my judicial record (all based upon one case out of tens of thousands and nowhere near the truth) and contrast and compare that with my record of judicial prudence; service to my country; dedication to my faith and my church; years of involvement in youth athletics as a coach; decades of work with the Scouts; my deep connection to the place I’ve called home for most of my life; and simply ignore the noise. I made a choice and didn’t respond to the attacks. I also vowed I wouldn’t attack my opponent (other than calling her out regarding her legislative record). I stayed true to those commitments but I’m convinced those choices cost me the 161 votes needed to win. 

On this gray, gloomy Monday morning, I’m sitting in my writing studio overlooking the Cloquet River still processing my electoral loss. But I find myself more concerned about what transpired on the national stage. Mistakes were undoubtedly made by my party during this election cycle. The messaging from the Left wasn’t crisp, accurate, or convincing. Strategic miscalculations likely played a role in defeating a worthy, honest, smart, hard-working duo of candidates. But I will not, I cannot, concede that where we are as a nation and a people is what our Founding Fathers, my mentors, my teachers, my parents, my Scoutmasters, my Sunday school leaders, my priests and pastors, or my immigrant ancestors had in mind as a future course for America. Where we go from here is yet to be written but I know that this old bruised and battered lion won’t be running for office again. It’s time for young folks of character, integrity, and honor to step forward, pick up the torch, and do what I tried to do: make this land a better place for all of our grandchildren regardless of ancestry, race, ethnicity, gender, orientation, or religion.

As for me, it’s time to get back to writing; being a husband, father, and grandfather; canoeing the river; traveling; and chasing birds with my hunting dogs.

Peace

Mark 

((c) 2024 Mark Munger)

Hello fellow residents of Northeastern Minnesota! As you know, I’m running for the office of Minnesota State Representative in District 3B on a platform of integrity, passion, and purpose.

I was raised in the Duluth neighborhood of Piedmont Heights. I’m an honors graduate of Duluth Denfeld High School, UMD, and the Mitchell-Hamline School of Law. After graduation from law school and completing Army Reserve Basic Training (Ft. Dix, NJ), my wife, René, and I returned to Duluth to raise our four sons. For the past 40 years, we’ve lived on the Cloquet River in Fredenberg Township. We’re proud of our boys who’ve grown into fine young men and we’ve also been blessed with three wonderful daughters-in-law and six lovely grandchildren.

In my professional life, I was a prosecutor for 14 years, in private law practice for 18 years, and served as a District Court Judge in the 6^th Judicial District (St. Louis, Cook, Lake, and Carlton Counties) for 23 years. My experiences as a lawyer, mediator, and judge give me a unique set of skills that I believe would be an asset in the legislature. During this campaign, I’ve promised to abstain from disparagement and negativity and I’ve kept my promise. No negative mailers or ads have been created, aired, or distributed by my campaign. I’ve honored my word because, as my father Harry repeatedly reminded me when I was growing up, “Mark, all you have is your word and your word is your bond.” I believe that restoring civility, decency, integrity, and common sense to our political discussions is the number one challenge facing us and I’m willing to roll up my sleeves and work to return us to a time when we could agree to disagree over issues we’re passionate about.

In my private life, I’ve been active in Scouting (I’m an Eagle Scout and currently serve on the Voyageur’s Council Advancement Committee), my faith (I’m the Co-Executive Director of Grace Lutheran Church ELCA in Hermantown), my community (I’m a board member of the Greater Denfeld Foundation and previously served on the Hermantown Community Foundation and in other organizations), and youth (25 years as a soccer and hockey coach in Hermantown). I’m the author of 14 books, the owner of Cloquet River Press, and am Honorably Discharged from the United States Army Reserve.

Public service is in my family’s DNA. René spent 15 years on the Hermantown Board of Education, 16 years as a mental health practitioner in the public schools, and ended her career as a Guardian ad Litem. Our son Matt currently serves on the Hermantown Board of Education.

I want to work hard for you, our children, and our grandchildren on issues that you’ve raised during interactions I’ve experienced at your doors and during gatherings throughout this campaign. The concerns you’ve raised include maintaining fiscal responsibility; supporting a strong system of public education; promoting economic opportunities while preserving our clean water, air, and our outdoor heritage;  finding ways to make elder care, childcare, and healthcare more affordable; and protecting a woman’s right to reproductive freedom. These are the issues you’ve highlighted. I’ve listened and I want to ensure your voices are heard in St. Paul.

November 5^th is just around the corner. After a lifetime of public service and civic involvement, I believe I’ve earned your trust and your vote. I’d ask that you send me to the Minnesota House where I can begin the hard work of legislating on your behalf. Find out more at www.mmunger4mn.com.

Thank you

Mark

(This essay first appeared in the Duluth News Tribune on 10/22/2024 in edited form.)

The Women of Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell (2019. Atria. ISBN 978-1-9821-0958-5)

I love the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I’ve spent many days and nights there, attending Finnish festivals, signing books at North Wind Bookstore (formerly attached to Finlandia University), giving interviews about my Finnish trilogy, and lecturing on writing and my use of history to tell a story. The third book of my trilogy, Kotimaa: Homeland, follows much of the same historical arc as this book, though the main female character in Russell’s work doesn’t appear in mine. That’s curious, I guess. So when I saw that the Keweenaw Community Foundation was raising money for a statue to one of the UP’s most beloved and iconic women, labor leader Annie Klobuchar Clements, I had to attend. My wife and I took a break from my political campaign and stayed five nights at the Houghton, MI municipal RV park right next to the Keweenaw waterway (Portage Lake) and made the short drive to Calumet for the gala. It was a stunning event with great food, people, history, and music. This book (an author signed copy) was in the silent auction, along with a collage created by its author and I was the lucky winner!

In essence, this is historical fiction featuring Big Annie (as she was known) during the 1913 Copper Strike. It is not, as the title suggests, really about the other women involved in the labor dispute except as very minor, adjunct, characters to Big Annie. Oh, there are snapshots of other female characters inhabiting the tale but none of them occupies center stage in the manner of the chief protagonist. That’s OK. However, there’s a bit of hero worship going on here, with the author drawing Annie’s already impostng physical and moral stature even grander and more important than the role history affords her. Again, not a real issue, though the praising of Annie’s moral fiber and grit seems a bit exaggerated. So too is the main antagonist’s fate. 

James MacNaughton, the principal of the Calumet mine where Annie’s husband and thousands of other men toiled beneath ground to extract copper for their masters, is not given much in the way of characterization beyond being a greedy, evil, SOB. Whether or not his callousness and vitriol towards immigrants and their children is real or imagined, the fact that there’s not a more nuanced approach to his persona and actions seems forced. That’s my major critique of the story and the writing: with the exception of Hitler, Stalin, and some other notable historical figures, most men are not pure evil. They are more nuanced and more complex than such a simple demarcation. But it’s within an author’s purview to tell his or her story as he or she sees fit. If it’s a tad tilted against reality, so be it.

In the end, the forces of good (Annie and the miners) and evil (MacNaughton and his thugs) plays out fairly well against the reality of history. I liked the book. I wanted to love the book but that didn’t happen. Still, a worthy read.

Peace

Mark 

4 stars out of 5. A good book for a book club to read and discuss against the backdrop of today’s resurgence of unionism.

 An Interview with Hanna Pylväinen …                                

MM:

Let’s start with the most exciting news, at least insofar as I’m aware. You were recently installed as the Finlandia National Lecturer of the Year.

HP:

Lecturer of the Year is a an especially cool honor since it means I can be invited to travel to any Finlandia Foundation chapters to do a reading or presentation or seminar, whatever the chapter wants and wherever the chapter might be. The Finlandia Foundation pays for my travel there, and the chapter covers my honorarium and accommodations in their home city—I’ll do eight of these trips this year. It’s a special pleasure to have Finnish readers and listeners—the burden of explanation comes down a lot—and of course people often have interesting stories for me in return.

MM:

Where were you born, where were you raised? What influence did Finnish culture, music, food, language, and customs play in formulating an affinity for Finnish and Finnish American culture? Have you visited Finland? If so, what impressions did that/those experience(s) leave with you?

HP:

Like so many Finns in America, I’m from Michigan—born and raised near Detroit. My mom taught me to make pulla, my uncle and father built a sauna in our basement, our cupboards were full of Moomin mugs, Marimekko patterns could be found on curtains and clothing and towels. We were musicians, we played all kinds of instruments, sometimes together, and we learned to love the outdoors, especially remote places—I would say all of these things, so to speak, are pretty Finnish. When I went to Finland for the first time in 2000, I was struck by how much I seemed like everyone else, both in terms of my looks but also things like other people’s love of music—it was almost odd. I’ve returned many times since, mostly to northern Finland in the Enontekiö region to do research for The End of Drum-Time, where I experienced more of Sámi culture than Finnish, though there, too, were Moomin mugs and Marimekko and saunas—and, of course, a love of the outdoors.

MM:

Was Finnish spoken in your home when you were growing up? How fluent are you in the language? I note from reviews of We Sinners and various interviews you’ve done, you were raised in a conservative Laestadian Lutheran home.

HP:

I don’t speak for everyone who is or has been Laestadian, of course, but for me, the experience of being raised Laestadian and then feeling it was imperative to leave it was difficult and poignant, in part because Laestadianism is a very tightly-knit community that becomes so embedded in your life, so central, it is hard to imagine life without it. There can also be huge social consequences to leaving—loss of friends, maybe family—so the pressure to stay can be huge. It’s also a religion that very much emphasizes feeling—feelings of guilt from sin and then feelings of relief from forgiveness—and this can create bodily sensations that the only way to not have sin is to be Laestadian and to be forgiven via their rituals and people. So this sets up the sense that to leave is crazy—then you’re stuck forever in the first, worse feeling—or that’s how it can seem. In this sense it’s not surprising, I don’t think, that the characters of my books think so much about what they feel—and are so swayed by their feelings—it was such an emphasis. Even the language of the church itself—there is no way to underestimate the impact of hearing the cadences of the King James Bible and the sermons every Sunday and more for the first eighteen years of my life. And while we didn’t speak Finnish at home except for bits and pieces (puuroa, miitoa, ole hyvä, prayers, etc.), there were many hymns sung at church in Finnish (that we didn’t understand), and also sermons (that were translated). In this sense, the rhythms and sounds of Finnish have always been extremely familiar to me; indeed, familial.

MM:

Authors take diverse roads to their passion. But most always, they are writers and readers from an early age. Was that true for you?

HP:

I read a lot as a kid—Laestadians don’t watch TV. I didn’t write very much, because ultimately one of my sisters would find it and, in the most painful workshop I’ve ever sat through, read my work aloud to me in mockery (once through the bottom of the bathroom door as I tried to hide). I wrote a short story for a church contest—maybe some little things here and there for school—but that’s about it; it didn’t occur to me to either be a writer or want to be one because I held them in such esteem and because most of the writers I read were dead—I used to read Anna Karenina every Christmas, and all the Austens, some Dickens, lots of old stuff. So becoming a writer did not really seem like a possible thing to do. This changed for me in college when I took a short story class as a break from a a lot of labs and science classes (I was thinking about going pre-med) and my writing professor insisted I study writing. I wrote a memoir called Unbelieving for my senior thesis and used that to get into graduate school—I felt at every turn I had no business really being there, or that I was wasting people’s time. It took quite a long time to feel like I was “really” a writer, and moreover, that I should be one.

MM:

We Sinners is, at least in my take (my men’s book club read it as our January 2024 read), a contemporary story of a Laestadian family struggling with their faith, the modern world, and current issues affecting families. What was your inspiration for the story? The novel reminds me, both in style and subject matter, of Canadian Mennonite writer Miriam Toews’s work. Any thoughts on that comparison?

HP:

We Sinners is my idea of a plausible fictional family that might have existed in my own family’s congregation; it is not actually my family. There are stories I either lived or heard of that formed the basis of a chapter, but usually by the time the story was finished the relationship to the truth was almost entirely lost. I was interested in what the arc of fiction could do for me as a writer that nonfiction could not do, both in terms of freeing me from some of the desultoriness of dailiness, but also in relieving me of the responsibility of representing real people—I love and admire my family deeply and did not want them to feel like I was writing about them. This turned out to be a little naive, since people imagine everyone I wrote to be completely real anyway. I’m okay with that these days—it’s only human—and to my mind at this point, the Rovaniemi family memebers that appear in We Sinners are their own people, with their own particular set of problems.

That said, of course, I did grow up facing many of the restrictions that the Rovaniemis face: no make-up, no earrings, no TV, no dancing, no listening to music “with a beat,” etc. These prohibitions are more or less common to fundamentalism of all kinds—part of what fundamentalist groups share are strict rules of behavior combined with a denial that these are “rules” or indeed intended to control people; everything becomes rooted in whether or not you are, essentially, morally good or pure. In this sense your behavior is never unimportant—I put it that way purposefully. I think there’s real reasons to think about why this kind of religion has historically appealed to Finns at all—and I think there’s many reasons to make a comparison to Miriam Toews.

MM:

Your second novel, The End of Drum-Time, was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Award.

HP:

We Sinners is based on what I knew about the life I had lived; The End of Drum-Time is based on what had created my life that I knew nothing about. That is to say: The End of Drum-Time tells the story of the creation of Laestadianism in the early 1850s; in it, a (fictionalized!) daughter of Laestadius runs away with a Sámi reindeer herder. It took me ten years of research and drafting and traveling to and from Sápmi to really understand what it was Laestadianism has to do with the Sámi—it turns out, a lot. As is often the case, again, by the time I was done writing it The End of Drum-Time doesn’t feel, I don’t think, much like it’s “about” Laestadianism—it’s about Willa, the daughter, and Ivvár, the reindeer herder, and it’s about complicated politics of colonial forces that led to why Laestadianism would have been appealing to Sámi reindeer herders (and poor northern Finns) in the first place. It was, as you might imagine, mind-boggling to be named a finalist—it was not the kind of thing I ever sat around dreaming about.

MM:

If a Finnish group wants to take advantage of your being selected Lecturer of the Year, what’s the best way to contact you to see if you’re available to read and discuss your work with a local group?

HP:

Zoom is a possibility, though part of being the Lecturer of the Year is that the Finlandia Foundation covers my travel to wherever your group is! I do have some LOY readings lined up: in Hancock, Michigan on April 13th; in Ithaca, NY on May 19th; and in Baltimore, MD on October 13th; and hopefully one in Sonoma, CA sometime in September or October.

MM:

Might your fans see you at an upcoming Finn Fest? Finally, without giving too much away, are you working on a project?

HP:

I’ll be giving a reading at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA on April 6th and a reading at NYU in NYC on April 11th, and a reading in Houghton on April 13th. I’ll also be at FinnFest. People looking for upcoming events can check my website at hannapylvainen.com.

I’m working on my next novel, which takes place in 2013 Boston. I’m very excited about it, though as far as I can tell, it has nothing to do with being Finnish, Laestadian, or herding reindeer, but you never know, these things have a way of sneaking in.

(This interview first appeared in the July 2024 issue of The Finnish American Reporter.)

An interview with Jess and Julie Koski …

MM:

When and where did you start your journey across America?

Jess:

We took our first steps west from Schoodic Bay, Acadia National Park on July 7^th, 2023. Neither of us had ever been to Maine before (one of maybe 5 states we hadn’t visited) and we were eager to experience Acadia NP!

MM:

I understand that you were walking to call attention to the epidemic of opioid addiction.

Julie:

We all have personal experiences with addiction: there is no one who hasn’t been touched by a friend or a family member’s struggle. Yet, there is still stigma associated with drug use. After 13 years as an ER nurse caring for people who overdose, it’s an issue close to my heart.   We’ve watched the opioid epidemic grow and change and become the monster that it is today. Opioid overdoses kill 80,000 people a year and are the leading cause of death of 18-to-45-year-olds. 80,000 people who could be alive due to the failure of the medical industry, from big Pharma to the local hospitals, to act and it sickens me. It’s time we accept and teach harm reduction: Naloxone is the simplest way to do this. It reverses the opioid poisoning so the person can breathe on their own and survive. Our approach of talking to people while walking was meant to open up discussion, one on one, so we could talk frankly and openly about experiences, feelings, and ideas relating to addiction and overdose. Many people we spoke with had lost someone and were interested in learning about harm reduction.  It was great to answer their questions and discuss their concerns in an informal, friendly manner. 

MM:

Jess, given your surname, you have Finnish heritage?

Jess:

I’m Finnish, as well as some other Northern European, French, and Native American blood. I’m an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and live on the Grand Portage Reservation. Some might call me a “Finndian” or “Finnishanabe”.

I visited Finland in the early 1990’s to ski in the World Master’s Ski Championships in Kuusamo, an eye-opening experience! I considered myself a competitive athlete, but regularly got my peppu kicked by much older men.

I took a Finnish language class before the trip. Prior to that, I had a vocabulary that was limited to mostly swear words.

I’ve always been proud of my Finnish heritage and took inspiration from the great Finnish running tradition. I read everything I could get my hands on about Paavo Nurmi and the other early champions. I was a young runner when Laase Viren won the double golds in Munich and Montreal. (I have a picture of myself and a few other locals with Viren when he came to run Grandma’s Marathon.)

Julie:

I’m pleased to say that I’ve enjoyed several rounds of karjalan piirakka back in the days of Hojito in Thunder Bay! But, as far as I know, I’m not Finnish. I’m adopted and not certain of my paternal side though, so you never know.  I grew up in Fargo, ND and my (adoptive) parents weren’t Finnish. My dad was a Fulbright scholar in Germany as a teen, thus we leaned to the schnitzel. 

MM:

Let’s get back to the walk you embarked upon last summer.

Jess:

Since doing things “the easy way” isn’t in our vocabulary, we decided to walk diagonally across the US from Maine to San Diego California. The route was very fluid and changed as we walked due to road and weather conditions. For example, we only learned about the wonderful Erie Canalway rails-to-trails path when we arrived in Maine. Consequently, we enjoyed an easy to navigate, 350-mile path free of cars. But we also had to detour away from a similar trail in Illinois due to the horrors of entering Chicago congestion.

We changed the route from Nebraska to Missouri/Kansas due to the approach of cold weather. And did so again in Colorado, detouring south into New Mexico and Arizona. These decisions turned out to be the best we made over the entire trip. Missouri has the KATY Trail; another rails-to-trails that follows the Missouri River and the route of Lewis and Clark. And New Mexico turned out to be our favorite state!

Logistically, we worked out a system where Julie would start walking each morning and I’d drive ahead, park the car (hopefully in some shade so the dogs could be comfortable), meet up, and I’d head out for my miles. We’d do this two or three times per day until we reached our daily mileage goal (15-30 miles.)

The dogs didn’t do a lot of walking. Izzy turned 17 on the walk and is mostly deaf and blind. Jessica is our year and a half old golden doodle and has plenty of energy but most often, we didn’t feel comfortable having her out on busy roads with us. I’d estimate she did maybe 150 miles of walking on dirt roads or paths. If we ever do another trek like this, Jessica would certainly be invited! Izzy will most likely be in “the happy hunting ground” by then, though we really didn’t think she’d make it to the Mississippi River: she’s actually more vigorous now than she was at the outset of the trip!

We walked from Maine to Indiana without taking a break. Then Julie went to Chicago for a music festival with some friends. We took another break for a trip home to see family around Christmas, and another for me to go to Phoenix for a 100-mile race. Yes, walking across the country apparently wasn’t enough for me!

In the end, we shifted a bit north of San Diego to Carlsbad to avoid big city traffic. We walked onto Terramar Beach and into the surf up to our shins.

Our sisu was tested when we reached Alamosa, Colorado. We were met with below freezing temps (-5F), very strong headwinds (40+mph), and high altitude (7000’-8000’.) There were a few days we just had to pack it in after seven miles, which put us further behind schedule.

Julie had surgery for lung cancer three years ago and, though she is doing great, she does have her limitations, walking over a 10,000’ pass into a howling headwind being one of them.

We’re excited to reunite with family in Minnesota and should arrive on my son, Eli’s, birthday! (We began the walk on Julie’s birthday—July 7th, and ended it on my daughter, Phoebe’s birthday, April 5th.)

MM:

Maybe let our readers in on the highlights of your trek.

Julie:

The highlight of the trip for me was the last step: right into the Pacific! The sun was shining down on us as we ran around on the beach in a giddy stupor, cheering with beers and letting the dogs bark and run wild. We’d finished without anything horrible happening. When you walk every day for months and months, it becomes part of you. The road, the trail, the highway, the wind; hours turn into days, days turn into months, miles turn into more miles. It’s hard to explain, but the process of one step after another and another quiets your mind and brings a deep feeling of peace even with semis whizzing by. 

 After walking and talking with people across this country, the idea that we’re all here to help each other still rings true. The kindness shown to us was epic. People everywhere stopped to ask if we needed help and that question usually led to a harm reduction conversation. In New Mexico, a woman jumped out of her car and ran over and hugged me. Later that day, we went to her house for dinner and to do laundry. We met a woman in Vermont with a dog like ours and when we arrived in Kansas, her sister took us out for breakfast. In Colorado, a former drug dealer gave us a beer and offered a place to camp for the night (we declined the camping spot but drank the beer).  In New York, a photographer friend-of-a-friend invited us to his studio and made a video for us. Finally, Jess had a great talk with an Amish fellow in Indiana. 

We have stories of kindness and support from every state and so many new friends who followed us on social media. There were also a few encounters with people not as open to us or our message but nothing scary.

We need to mention how grateful we are to our friends and family! For 8 months they’ve held us up, cared for our cats and plants, and encouraged us daily. What a journey! 

MM:

Will there be a chance for folks to hear and see about your epic trek either through a video compilation, lectures, or perhaps, a book?

Jess:

We’ve posted links on our website to some of the interviews we’ve done with newspapers and radio stations. Readers can find those links at: www.walkforthelove.com. Also, WITP radio in Grand Marais, MN did a wonderful job of keeping up with us. Those interviews can be accessed at www.wtip.org.

I do write (I’ve a Masters in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University, and taught English at Hibbing Community College) so the idea of completing a book about our journey is appealing. I’ve gotten some “pre-orders” from a few people along the route, though I think maybe they’ve consumed one too many beers!  We’ll see. Maybe someone out there knows of a potential publisher?

MM:

What’s next for you two?

Jess:

We’re slowly making our way back to Minnesota and “the real world.”  Julie is pondering the next chapter in her professional life: she still has a few more years before she can join the ranks of wandering retirees.

We sometimes daydream about another walk (perhaps across Europe: the Arctic Circle to Morocco) but we also feel the need to reconnect to Northern Minnesota and spend time with our (grown) kids, siblings, and my mother.

We’re passionate about a number of issues beyond Harm Reduction, such as climate change, plant-based diet, and inspiring people to get out and move or take on a challenging physical/spiritual journey.  We met many people who said, “I wish I could do what you’re doing.”  I always replied, “You can! You don’t necessarily have to walk across the country, but you can go for a hike every day, walk or bike across your state, or commit to a daily practice of exercise, meditation, yoga, or whatever makes you feel good.”

MM:

Where can folks find out more about your walk across America?

Jess:

We’ll keep our Facebook and Instagram pages active, and I’ve promised at least one more blog post on our web site.

Thanks so much for your interest in our walk, Mark and Finnish American Reporter!

(This article first appeared in the June 2024 issue of the Finnish American Reporter)