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In the capital city of St. Paul, all roads apparently lead to a store named “Choo-Choo Bob’s World of Trains.” I know this because every St. Paulite that I’ve met has resoundingly told me that I had to go there. I’ve asked scores of dudes, dudettes, moms at the park, moms at the pool, and moms at the putt-putt golf course for suggestions on where I should take my son for a Staycation. And they all told me to go to Choo-Choo’s. For crying out loud, even the hipster college kid at the Patagonia store on Grand Avenue told me I should go there. Forget about the Como Zoo, the Science Museum, and all that business, they said. I had to check out the little engine (store) that could. I think I can…I think I can…

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Grand Old Day traditionally stands as the biggest party of the summer in St. Paul.  It is a big boozy slur down a street of beer, rock and roll, and shenanigans.  In contrast, Highland Fest, a neighborhood festival now celebrating its 26^th year, offers a more docile atmosphere, one that is more family friendly.  (The marketing campaign even shows a picture of a cheery family in a Merry-Go-Round.) Make no mistake, though; Highland Fest will be rocking this weekend with live music, rides, games, art vendors, food vendors, and even a Strongman Competition.  There will be plenty of beer drinkers at Highland Fest also.  But you just probably won’t see beer hurling out of someone’s throat in the middle of Ford Parkway.  While the buzz, inebriation, and hangover of Grand Old Day is now long gone, there still is plenty of partying to do this weekend at Highland Fest.

What: Highland Fest http://www.highlandfest.com/

Where: The corner of Cleveland Avenue and Ford Parkway.

When: Friday July 17^th 2pm-10:30pm, Saturday July 18^th 10am-10:30pm, Sunday July 19^th 11am-5pm

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Spam…on display?  In a museum? Seriously?

A can of Spam was just one of the many genuine Minnesota items on display at the MN150 exhibit at the Minnesota History Center.  The entire exhibit room was filled with a what-what? list of people, places, and things that make the land of 10,000 lakes such an unique place to live. Among the items that my son and I went nuts for were:

-Prince’s purple robe. Shiny and velvety, my son thought it was a super hero’s costume.  Was Prince’s super power his libido?  Or was it his guitar playing?

-Gordon Parks’ white mustache. In a wall photo, the legendary photographer, who lived in the Twin Cities, sports one of the most awesome staches in the history of facial hair.

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As I sat in front of the small stage at the Dragon Festival in Phalen Park on Sunday, I waited with baited breath.  In the world of children’s literature, dragons are often the worst creatures alive.  Not counting good old Puff, dragons are usually ornery, scaly, spiky, fire breathing creatures that torment villagers and spook the living daylights out of children.  Was the upcoming performance going to traumatize my son?  Were the dragons in the festival performance going to haunt his dreams for years?  The official Dragon Festival website told me to, “Watch the Dragons Come Alive!”  That entire quote was a jack pot of nightmarish parental possibilities.  As the father of a five year old son (who, by the way, is deathly afraid of ANTS!), I was hoping for just a little bit of Puff and not a whole lot of aerial flame throwing.

Performers crawled inside two giant parade style dragons and bounded up on the stage.  My son wore somewhat of a psychotic smile (half cute and half stark fear).  The two massive dragon heads reared up and dropped down, flipped and flopped.  Much to my relief, the Dragons were magnificent and colorful and their movements were downright playful (at times).  Our fears quickly washed away. By the end of the performance, the dragons were comically bounding around the stage like “Barkley the Dog” (Snuffaluffagus’ friend on Sesame Street).

But the Dragon show was merely just an appetizer (a side order of potstickers perchance?) on the menu of activities being served up that afternoon.  The Dragon Festival, a showcase of the cultural heritage of local Asian Pacific Islander communities, featured Bollywood dance routines, martial arts demonstrations, Henna art clinics, origami, and people practicing how to fight with sticks.  To the sound of chanting and pounding drums, a fleet of Dragon Boats raced across Lake Phalen.  The heads of the long canoe style vessels were ordained with sinister looking dragon heads.  It wasn’t all serious, though. There was a team in the tournament named “Cliff’s Still Not Paddling.”

The arts and crafts activities were just as whimsical.  At the Target tent, we made a dragon kite with streamers.  Then we made a Chinese lantern, a dragon mask, a puppet, and a fan.  At one point, I literally had electric blue feathers sticking out of my pockets and my shirt was bedazzled with glitter.  There was even a make-up session for Asian women.  Now, I’m just about the furthest thing from being an Asian woman, but I still watched.

After the race, we walked through the vendor booths and collected a ton of swag.  A Minnesota Air Guardsman (who was dressed in a t-shirt with the words “Got Freedom?” on the front) gave my son a Nerf football.  Next to that booth, a rack of trinkets called “Back Pack Buddies” were on display.  My son got to pick amongst a ghoul with an afro, a skeleton with a Mohawk, and a mummy in a Spider Man mask.  I stopped by a Chiropractic booth to have my rather bullish body frame gauged for alignment.  I stepped onto a platform.  Then a man moved a whole series of brightly colored strings across my body to measure my posture.  The exact medical diagnosis was simple:  I was slouchy.  And that was just fine with me.  After all, I came into the festival expecting dragon induced nightmares. But there wasn’t a single scary dragon in sight.  My son was free to joyously man handle a plastic spine without a care in the world.  And for that, I’ll take slouchy any day of the week.

In an on-going attempt to eat as many hamburgers as possible in one St. Paul summer, I recently visited The Nook, a cozy little neighborhood bar in the Highland neighborhood.  Or is it in Mac Groveland?  I have no idea.  But it doesn’t matter anyway.  I had crossed the river to try a “Juicy Nooky” the Nook’s version of the legendary hamburger with cheese melted in the middle.  Matt’s Bar in South Minneapolis claims to be the originator (and the best) of the Juicy Burgers.  I’ve recently discovered, though, that without St. Paul, Minneapolis wouldn’t be half as awesome as it thinks it is.  Without the Capital City riding shotgun on our eastern shore, Minneapolis would be Omaha.  A diehard St. Paulite told me as such when I originally inquired about The Nook.  My wing man for the nightly burger spelunking was my five year old son, otherwise known as “Mayor McCheese.”

We walked through the front door of “The Nook” and it was basically the portal into Burger Town.  With its neon signs, cramped tables, and familial rowdy vibe, the place was old school.  If you’re out of ketchup, all you gotta do is lean back and ask your pal at the next table.  Late afternoon sunlight poured in the windows and you could practically see the playful pub banter sprinkling in the air.  Over head, a flat screen TV played a Twins game.  This was fitting because not only did Twins catcher Joe Mauer used to play across the street at Cretin-Derham Hall, but there is a Joe Mauer burger on the menu.  We ordered two Juicy Nookies and felt the weight of South Minneapolis land squarely on our 612 shoulders.  After a few restless minutes, we peeked into the kitchen and saw our burgers being served up. As if on cue, the bartender dropped our burgers right in front of us.  I picked my burger up immediately.

“Careful, boss,” the bartender quipped, raising an eyebrow.  The bartender was wearing a t-shirt that had the words, “Tasty…Tasty…Murder” written across the back.  Just as he left, he turned and said, “Got to let it sit for a few minutes.”

I set my burger down to let the scalding hot cheese in the middle of the two patties cool down.  I looked over at my son and tried to give him instructions on proper Juicy etiquette.

“We have to let them cool,” I said.

“Why can’t we just, you know, eat them?”  Murphy asked innocently.

“Because they will melt our faces off,” I said.  Daddy makes dinner sound dangerous!

After a few minutes, I lifted up my Juicy Nook Burger and gave it a test nibble.  It had cooled.  It was awesome.  Meat.  Cheese.  What more does a guy need?

A rush of hungry patrons had formed a hard line from the tip of the bar and all the way outside to the sidewalk.  A man in a tie and khakis stood with a folded up newspaper under his arm.  A bearded dude with tattoos as sleeves wiped down a table.  A group of elderly neighborhood folks dressed in wind breakers stood patiently to the side and quizzically looked at all the hub-bub.  Meanwhile, my son and I sat and enjoyed our taste of St. Paul.  Even though we are from Minneapolis, a glowing city across the river, one that is extremely close in measurement, but is technically a world away, The Nook felt like home.

What:  The Juicy Nooky

Where:  The Nook, 492 Hamline Avenue South      651.698.4347

The Fourth of July celebration at the Taste of Minnesota was a greasy spectacle of a good old fashioned American summer.  There were sweets and sweat, fries and kurds, sno-cones and funnel cakes, brews and root beer floats, Jolly Ranchers and cans of 100 % whoop ass.  I never thought that a foot long corn dog could be a patriotic symbol of our nation’s independence.  But it was.  Big time.  It was freedom deep fried, stuffed with meat, and impaled on a stick.

On stages throughout Harriet Island, rock bands blasted out freedom loving tunes (think: “Mississippi Queen” sung by a forklift driver).  The sun poured down on the venue, the belly’s came out, and the festival became a heavy metal salute to our sovereignty.  I chowed down on my foot long corn dog right next to a Satellite toilet that was covered with a giant picture of Bret Michaels, former Poison lead singer and current reality television show star.  Now, I am by no means a history expert.  But I’m pretty sure my experience at the Taste was exactly what our fore fathers fought for against the English.  Under a flag of democracy, our brave revolutionary militia fought for the right to enjoy horribly processed food, all the while listening to teeth cringing rock n’ roll.  I knew the Fourth of July holiday was in full effect when I caught my five year old son tapping his foot and banging his head to the rock-funk jam “Black Betty” just outside the perimeter of a huge party tent.

Later in the day, we got misted with water by salon girls outside the Votre Vu booth.   A few spots down, we watched a salesman with a headset microphone demonstrate the awesome power of “The Super Sham Wow!”  We took free boxes of “Honey Bunches of Oats” cereal from a young man in a hard hart that was riding a three wheeled bike.  There was a corral of funhouse bouncy inflatable rides in a grassy field.  My son sprinted into a Dragon’s mouth, slide down the stomach, and exited out the Dragon’s bottom.  Again, I’m no history buff.  But there had to be some sort of nationalistic metaphor in there somewhere.

After an hour, though, I was all freedomed out.   All the hard rock (I guess I should’ve gone on the night when Elvis Costello was performing) had left a metallic taste in the back of my throat.  But since I am a grown man in free society, I decided to fight on and extend our St. Paul adventure.  Like Lewis and Clark before me, I summoned undaunted courage.  I slung my forty pound son onto my shoulders.  We fought our way through a festival thicket of beer drinkers, baby strollers, and gastrointestinal road blocks.  Our destination was an oasis of unchartered territory:  Raspberry Island.  We made it to the quiet island park, located just off of Harriet Island, and stood barefoot on the sandy tip.  The mighty river flowed all around us.  With corn dogs in our guts, sun on our necks, and freedom in our hearts, we participated in a great American summer pastime:  skipping rocks.  Summer was finally here.

Let freedom ring.  Then deep fry it and eat it.

In the parking lot outside Midway Stadium, three men hovered silently over a barbeque grill.  They pensively looked down at the flames and billowing smoke, worshiping at the altar of charcoal and fire.  Using a pair of tongs, one of the men took a large steak off the grill.  Then the BBQ grill master broke out an electric meat cutter.  The parking lot filled with the sound of the whining saw as it slashed through the steak.  When the cutting was done, all three men grabbed a fresh beer, slid it into a foam cozy, and ate the glorious meal of men-not-at-work.  The three dudes and the other dozen or so large hordes of tailgaters at the St. Paul Saints game had turned tailgating (and day time adult shenanigans) into an art form.  There were bean bag toss games, hacky sack, party tents, campers, RVs, grill smokers, and music blasted out of boom boxes.   

My son and I hadn’t even gotten into the stadium yet and we were all ready having the time of our lives.  In fact, Murphy thought all the hub-bub in the parking lot was our activity for the day.

“Oh, no, there’s more inside,” I said, “A lot more.”

Just inside the stadium gates, we bought bag of popcorn from a nice older man in a t-shirt that read, “Do Vegetarians Eat Animal Crackers?”  Then we saw a man being Velcroed to the right field wall.  The booming voice of the PA announcer said, “It is 73degrees outside the stadium.  It is 73 degrees inside the stadium.”  A pig wobbled out onto the field in a tutu.  A man dressed in a leather cowboy hat, white tuxedo jacket, and a long skirt walked up to us and said hello.  The Muppet Pigs were playing on the Jumbo Tron scoreboard.  After the second inning, a dork sprinted onto the field and lead fans in “nerd aerobics.”  After the third inning, a kid dressed as a judge (in a black robe and white wig), threw the book at an intermission contestant (who was dressed in a giant foam pizza outfit).  Then a Northern Pacific freight train barreled past the left field wall.  Off in right field, St. Paul fire fighters could be seen scaling a training tower.  Then another vendor walked by and his t-shirt read, “It is All Fun and Games until Someone Loses a Weiner.”  A cluster of older women, elegantly dressed in purple shirts and red hats, sat in the front row nibbling on mini donuts.  The man sitting directly behind them was blotto.  The Sioux Falls Canary catcher walked to the mound to have a chat with the pitcher.  The St. Paul Saints Super Fan led the crowd in a cheer.

“Blah!  Blah!  Blah!  Go Saints!” We all yelled in unison.

On our way out of the stadium, Herbie Hancock’s famous 1980s break dance song “Rocket” was blasting out of the stadium sound system.  Without a single pause, my son and I both broke out in a crazed robot dance right there on the stadium steps. 

Who knew baseball could be so funky?

The kids in the Highland Park Pool seemed to multiple like Gremlins.  With every splash of water, four kids miraculously sprang up out of the wake.  By noon, Gertie’s Sea Castle Bay, the raucous water park adjacent to the Highland public pool and golf course, became a water logged mosh pit.  When my son and I arrived just an hour before, the kid’s pool was nearly empty.  Murphy and I walked straight up to the cashier, bought two tickets, and immediately got into the water.  No fuss.  No splash.  We went down the water slides, shot some balls in the water fountain basketball hoops, and playfully stuck our feet over the bubblers.  Then the sun ratched up a few more degrees and got the temp pushing 90.  Before we knew it, splash pool bedlam broke out and we just held on for the wet and wild ride.

As parents hovered in the zero depth pool, kids ran amuck.  Babies, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and grade schoolers all rushed through the water, engrossed in some frenzied adolescent race against one another.  They had to do everything AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!  Turn around, DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN!  QUICK!  BEFORE THE OTHER KIDS DO IT!  

In the Highland kid pool, water sprayed out of a turtle shower, a huge smiling fish, dolphin blow holes, and a giant coral decorated tower.  From every direction, I was sprayed or splashed or tagged with water.  After about ten minutes, I just leisurely walked back and forth in the pool and got hosed down like I was in a car wash.  My son walked on his hands and practiced his kicking.  I watched like a proud papa.  Out of nowhere, a small kid paddled over and landed at my feet.  The kid started lapping up the pool water into her mouth.  A punk rock mom cut through the pool like a speed boat.  The mom wore a hot gold bikini and had so many black tats she looked like a tiger. She playfully hoisted the kid out of the water by her armpits.

“Baby…Don’t drink the water,” punk rock mom cooed, “Kids pee in here.”

On that note, we got out of the pool. 

We walked a few more feet and ran through a giant fake fish skeleton that squirted water from every conceivable angle.  After several minutes of mad dashing between the spray lines, we took a seat on a nearby bench.  But even that sprayed water.  Murphy and I sat down and a gentle arch of water shot overhead.  We eventually toweled off, changed into dry clothes, and got a slushy at the snack bar.

At the end of the afternoon, we were saturated with water and sun.  We had achieved that idyllic summer state of sun kissed, soggy, and groggy.  Murphy was so tired he barely made it to the car.  Right before he fell asleep in the back seat, I asked him to write the Highland pool story for the St. Paul Staycations.

“I went down the dolphin slide.  It was awesome.  I had a slushy.  It was blue,” Murphy said, his eyes swishing around in a pool of hard earned drowsiness.  “Bye-Bye.”  

By the looks of the patrons loitering outside the Grand Old Creamery, apparently everyone on Grand Avenue loves ice cream.  At first, when my son and I walked down the street I assumed the huge line of people were waiting for a concert or to get into a really cool bar.  Then the irresistibly wicked smell of waffle cones wafted over me and I found myself in a trance, hovering above the ground Peter Pan style, and getting in line with the rest of St. Paul for a cone of ice cream.  My son and I weren’t even going out for ice cream.  We were actually on our way to La Cucaracha, the famous Mexican restaurant located a few blocks away at the very end of Grand Avenue.  But the sweet bakery smell of fried batter stopped us dead in our tracks.  So I made an executive decision (my wife was at work) and decided to have dessert before dinner.

A slap-happy college kid scooped us two cones.  My son got bubble gum.  I got some sort of iced coffee goodness in a sugar cone.  We retreated to the back room.  For the first time all day, my five year old son actually stopped talking.  Usually, Murphy chatters and blabbers and rambles all day long about everything from how he wishes he was a Pirate to how mean Mega Tron the Transformer is to how he wants a real life pet pig.  And I love the kid for it.  But the ice cream at the Grand Old Creamery was so good it actually unplugged a five year olds motor mouth for ten whole minutes.  As I finished my cone, I popped a few quarters in the vintage Ms. Pac Man video game to buy myself a few more minutes of silence.

Back out on the street, the line had grown.  A gaggle of hipsters actually tried to walk past the ice cream shop.  The cool kids briskly moved down Grand avenue, trying to avoid the whole double scooping scene.  But then I saw the sweet waffle smell of fried batter waft over them, gently tickling their nostrils.  Within seconds, a few heads in the group turned.  Then a little chit-chat started and a few shoulders were shrugged.  Their night time beverage binge of IPAs and mocha lattes could hold for a moment.  Soon, the group was floating in a trance and found themselves in the back of the ice cream line.

Ahh…summer:  There is nothing like having a little ice cream before dinner.  Just don’t tell my wife.

At this point, we all know the fate of the Titanic.  When we hear the mere mention of the tragic vessel, our brains instantly flash to the image of an iceberg and a massive ship being swallowed by the frigid waters of the north Atlantic.  Oh, yeah, and there was that colossal movie made about the tragedy.  But sadly, all we really think about the Titanic is the sinking boat and Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

As time moves forward, our history books tend to gloss over the intimate and more human details of landmark events.  We learn one dramatic encapsulating picture, such as the sinking of the Titanic, and have a tendency to pass by the details of the actual individuals who made the history.  We know all about our nation’s battles, but know very little of the people who actually fought in them.  We know all about the monumental events in our nation’s proud history, but know very little about the individuals who sacrificed so much to achieve them.  The story of the Titanic is no different.  For the past several decades, it’s basically been all about the boat.  With the grand opening of the new “Titanic:  The Artifact Exhibition” at The Science Museum of Minnesota, the passengers are now finally at the forefront.  We no longer have to sit back and wonder, who were these passengers and where were they going?

Learning more about the Titanic passengers, in fact, is the first thing visitors find out when they view the new exhibit.  At the entrance, each guest receives a replicated boarding pass that gives the name of an actual passenger on the Titanic.  The boarding pass gives intimate details on the lives of the men and women aboard the world’s most famous ship.  As I held the boarding pass in my hand, a historic event was no longer an abstract thought, one that could be easily and callously glossed over.  The sinking of the Titanic was downsized onto a human scale.  I was handed the boarding pass of Mr. William Gilbert, 47, from Cornwall, England.  Gilbert was leaving England where he was enjoying a three month holiday and was travelling alone.  He was headed to Butte, Montana, where he was to start up a boarding house with his sister Mary.  The boarding house was to be for all his fellow Cornish miners that were working in the gruesome pits of Butte.  Gilbert was staying in the 2nd class accommodations.  At the end of the exhibit, I was to find the memorial wall and find out if Mr. William Gilbert ever made it to Butte to fulfill his dreams.

I stepped onto a small wooden ramp, entered the exhibit, and was thrown directly back into 1912.  As I moved through the exhibit, I viewed ancient tooth brushes, combs, eye droppers, and a United States $5 bill with the picture of a Native American in full head dress in the center.  Then I read the actual dinner menu that was used on the Titanic.  The minutia of the menu was another striking example of how the “Titanic:  The Artifacts Exhibit” was bringing history down to a human scale.  I read the classist menu out loud to my five year old son.

“The First Class ate lamb with mint sauce and American ice cream.  The Third Class ate boiled potatoes and stew,” I said.

“Which one would you want to eat?”  My son Murphy asked me.

“I’m going to go with the Third Class menu of potatoes and stew,” I said, “Because that’s what they would’ve given us because we are Irish and German.”

“Yeah, I want that, too,” Murphy said.  He shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s ok to say you want the ice cream,” I said.

“Ok, I want the ice cream,” Murphy said sheepishly.

Each display room was set with a different mood. Using colored lights, sound effects, and massive wall size photographs, each room had either a honey walled good time vibe or a shadowy black lit foreboding.  This, of course, had to be.  After all, it was Titanic.  In the end, Mr. William Gilbert sadly never made it to Butte, Montana, where he was to open a boarding house for Cornish miners.  Gilbert was just one of the 1,523 passengers who drowned in 1912.  But thanks to the new Titanic exhibit, I learned that he wasn’t just a mere passenger.  He was a man who was coming off a vacation and had a dream blossoming in his heart.  And that is to be celebrated, learned, and passed on to my son.  Gilbert’s life was the history lesson.

As the famous Irish philosopher Jack Foster once said, “We are all passengers on the Titanic.”