Part of a human being is a human sleeping. Sleep is easy. I can do it with my eyes closed. Follow your dreams and fall asleep. My brother could sleep standing up. I’m not that good, but I’m a competent sleeper. Most nights, I barely notice the sheets are made of razor wire, but there are those nights when I toss and turn, and turn and toss like a little kid on Christmas … [Read more...]

First of a series It surely will never receive another human footstep, but it endures two levels below street level in downtown Caledonia – a century-and-half-old brewery cellar. As far back as the first decades of white settlement in the 1850s-1860s, there were breweries in Southeast Minnesota, often started by European immigrants, particularly but not exclusively German … [Read more...]

Part five of a series Mysterious and frightening noises at night, a back-and-forth chase with a savage animal and an oversized vegetable were among strange experiences for T. R. Stewart, who as an 11-year-old boy, came with his family to Minnesota Territory in 1853. A half-century later, he wrote about those first few months as one of the first white families to settle in … [Read more...]