Long ago, when I bought a Manhattan apartment, my mother Grace gave me a clay coffee cup with Minnesota painted on it, and our state bird, the loon, so I'd remember where I come from,

though at age 44, it was pretty well embedded in me. In college, announcing on a classical music

radio station, I managed to refit my Minnesota accent

to sound educated. But I still have a keen sense of insignificance, like all other Minnesotans,

comes with the territory.

Scott Fitzgerald and Bob Dylan are our big claims to success.

Scott died young and alcoholic, and Bob is famous for obscurity.

And Walter Mondale was the politest candidate for president in American history

and the biggest loser. And Bronco Nogerski was actually Canadian. My mother was a good mother.

She told stories about me, how when dad went off to join the Army in World War II,

I wouldn't let anyone sit in his chair at the head of the table.

Daddy's chair, I said, and I could be quite forceful about it.

She worried about me, how I enjoyed lighting fires and how I loved to play on the Mississippi shore, though I'd been told not to.

She worried about drowning and about tornadoes.

In the summer if a storm came up, we always went to the southwest corner of the basement

and as authorities had said to do.

Everyone except me, I like to stand in the yard and watch the storm arrive and see the branches of trees shake in the wind,

hoping for the sight of a funnel cloud. When I was sad or disappointed, felt cheated of life's

pleasures, she always said to me, what's the matter? Did the dog pee on your

cinnamon toast? Which always made me grin, the thought of our aged cocker spaniel

climbing up on the table and lifting his left hind leg. It makes me smile just to think of it now.

It was her own unique line. No other mother said it. She knew how much I loved toast with butter, sugar, and cinnamon on it. It was her line for me.

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