Man saved from floating ice slab on the Mississippi

"One witness said the man looked like the Statue of Liberty as he tried to keep his footing atop the ice slab amid the strong winds and fast-moving current." ~ Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Sitting with her husband Monday afternoon at the kitchen table at her mother's Mississippi River-side house in Anoka, Sue Hillberg glanced out the window with her coffee in hand and quickly turned to her husband and said "Ya sure, there's a kid floating down a river slab again," and then called 911. The "kid" was a 19-year-old Anoka man who was taking an unwelcome ride on a wide, smooth slab of ice that had broken off as he stood on it along the shoreline somewhere upriver, according to authorities in Anoka.

Ok people, again have to comment on another Minnesota story because nobody here in North Carolina ever believes my "back home" stories. This is yet another prime example of:

A: How damn cold it is in what...almost April? Cold enough to "ride" an ice slab down the flipping Mississippi River? What gives? Like, didn't this kid have bus fare? Did he drop a shoe?

B: How casual onlookers can "glance up" from the breakfast table and comment.."Ya sure, another floater thar Daddy."

Scandinavian Minnesotans can be overly casual during any emergency or what would be, to others, a thrilling event. Flat, emotionless. Nothing ruffles the cold prickly feathers of these Northerners. (I am a freak of my family because I have a personality. Nobody knows what branch of the family tree I was spawned from and that is just fine by me.)

When I was little my grandmother hardly looked sideways when my dress caught fire in her kitchen. All I remember her saying was .. "Ya sure, there ya go again, you betcha, always messin' around. Roll a bit will ya?"

I think she threw flour on me.

When my Grandmothers brother died, she didn't go to the funeral because it was "wash day." (Tuesday...Monday was "soak" day...) On my wedding day my Grandmother called my Mother saying they were going to pass because "Daddy was too hot, and she was waiting for a stool".

Sadly everything for a Norwegian revolves around stools (not the bar kind) and weather. Imagine your whole social life, events, births, weddings and funerals revolving around if you took a poop yet that day (cant leave the house until producing a good solid BM)... and what the weather was outside. (Too cold, too muggy, snowy, misty, foggy, sticky, mosquito-ey) Yes Minnesota DOES have mosquitoes big enough to rape a chicken, but I don't consider it "weather."

But all weather and stools tossed aside if you tell a Norwegian the Scandinavian Buffet on West Seventh has Lefsa on special for $2.99 with Moose Steaks and Mushroom Sauce, Lye soaked Lutfisk and Yulekage bread ...., watch these tall lanky blue eyed creatures high-tail it to the car plowing through 12 foot snow drifts with a walker screaming "Ya git outta me way thar now bitch!!"

Being frugal was anther Minnesotan Scandinavian trait they are proud of.

I assume it stemmed from having to make rations last all winter, and seasonal work.

Frugal. Nice way to say cheap.

My Grandparents were SO cheap, I recall at age 10 watching in horror as my grandmother loaded her purse while eating out, with all the leftover bread, cracker and salt packets, and lettuce from under a pear salad. (Pear salad is what you find on hospital food trays in Russia and airlines in about 1978. One leaf, one half Bartlett.)

This is considered "Fancy" food in Minnesota, right up there with Tuna Casserole, Tater-Tot Hot-dish and Goulash with Bars. There I sat with my little brother and 2 cousins in 1977 sporting my Donny Osmond T-shirt and bell-bottoms horrified that someone from my school was there and watching this freak show. Worst case scenario, Mike King. I LOVED HIM!

"This will make a nice little sandwich for Daddy." she would whisper as I slunk down lower in the plastic lined booth....mortified.

Shortly before my 18th birthday I fled the "ice family".

I moved into a cool condo with two friends, and bought a ticket to Europe with absolutely NO agenda.

I felt like such a free rebel flying across the globe with $600 and a borrowed backpack housing one GIANT can of Aqua Net hairspray, some clothes and a passport. (the hairspray I soon ditched in a back alley in Hallstatt Austria along with razors and lip gloss)

I enjoyed the new habit of eating what seemed like expensive decadent chocolate (Toblerone) for breakfast, while sleeping past 9:00 in Venice, Germany, Santorini, Switzerland, Athens, Milan, Paris, Rome, Corfu...all while getting drunk on Ouzo and fine French wine each night, tearfully watching the sunset over the Adriatic on a hillside in Greece by myself, realizing there IS a God, and it's not my parents God......

.......smashing plates on others heads while dancing on dirt floor bars in Corfu, skinny-dipping my tanned youthful self in a rough black Sea at 3am, while kissing a sinfully beautiful boy from Jamaica who wore nothing but a sharks-tooth necklace...ahhh...going topless on Greek beaches while screaming (in English to several confused locals) "Ok People...it's "Beer O'Clock!!!" ....who, I am quite positive, wanted to send my American preppy white ass right back to where I came from.

At any rate I am glad it wasn't ME floating down the river on that ice slab today,and that my Grandmother wasn't the one who spotted me.

Today is Tuesday, and it would be wash day.

She would just walk downstairs saying "ya sure you betcha....damn kids".

Lefsa

INGREDIENTS

18 baking potatoes, scrubbed
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup butter
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon white sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour

Roll into balls and chill overnight. Roll out paper thin and fry on a high heat skillett. Add cinnamon and sugar, roll and knock yourself out.

Yulekage A traditional Scandinavian Christmas bread that has raisins, candied fruit, and is seasoned with cardamon.