Winona

Highway 14

My day begins at 6:30, in the Call Center on Highway 14, checking email and job tickets. Everything loooks good. I load up the Jeep according to my mental checklist (god, let’s hope it’s right) and pack up my two laptops, their bags stuffed with printed documents, extra cables, power supplies and a new Blackberry. I throw them and a box of retail barcode scanners in the passenger side, jam my liter of tea in one of the holes between the seats, and go, sometime after seven.

This will be a round trip, arriving back in Mankato by midnight. First stop, Winona. KMSU Shuffle Function, the politely irreverent local morning show, massages me into the day with peppy music and cheeky banter. BBC comes on, the station scatters in the ionosphere, and a forward search evokes National Public Radio, airing  quiet analysis of global pandemics and border incursions.

As I take highway 43 north from Interstate 90 towards Winona, driving downwards in a wooded valley that will eventually open up to the Mississippi flood plain, frequency modulation becomes more selective, and I switch to the station transmitting from Winona State University. Jennifer, the announcer, gives us a weather report at 9:55. It is 55 degrees, with no precipitation, and wind from the north at zero miles an hour.  

Zero miles an hour, from the north. In other words, no wind. But if there were wind, it would come from the north. Perhaps the last time the wind blew, it came from the north. Or maybe meteorologists have proclaimed that the wind will arrive from the north on its next visit. Nevertheless, I am still nagged by the concept of something with no speed having a direction. A thing can be motionless, yet have potential. In physics, there are equations to describe this, but do they apply to everything which has direction, but is not moving? What is the speed of life? It might seem that you are breaking the speed limit, yet going nowhere. So, whether you are going somewhere, purpose means everything. You are writing a book, but not actually producing much in the way of chapters. Yet the intent is there. Wind at zero, out of the north.

Chong’s Noodle House

The retail store at Winona has few problems. We reboot a retail machine a few times until the check scanner on the receipt printer starts working. The bill pay kiosk and broadband demo laptop test out good. Otherwise, the manager is just happy to see me and chat a while. Another manager is there to help him out, and they tell me I could join them for lunch after the interview they are going to do in about an hour. I thank them for the invitation, but have other things on my mind. There is a lot of day ahead of me.

I leave the cell phone store, and park at a used book store, Paperbacks and Pieces. I look through the poetry section, which is, as normal, about 1/20 of the bookshelf-space of the store, and pick out the following:

“The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, Second Edition” edited by J.D. McClatchy, Vintage Books

“Four Quartets”  T.S. Eliot, Harcourt, Inc.

“33 Minnesota Poets”  Edited by Monica and Emilio DeGrazia– This book was printed by Nodin Press in 2000. I buy it because it includes people I know and love. Mary Kay Rummel. Linda Back McKay. Norita Dittberner-Jax. Kathleen Heideman is in there, too. I’ve met and read a few of the others, but never engaged with them.

I’m hungry. The coffee shop across the street from the store is great, but I want something different. The Asian restaurant a few doors down is ok, but nothing special. I figure I’ll drive back to Rochester and have a late lunch, something light as not to interfere with the evening meal, whatever that was going to be. So I take a scenic drive down fourth street, saying goodbye to Winona until the next time, until I pass Chong’s Noodle Shop, across the street from St. Stanislaus, the oldest Catholic church in Winona. With its onion dome and slavic name, the church proclaims Polish presence in the area.  I’m interested, though, in the little shop across the street.

The sign over the front has the magic words - “Special Pho.”  I park on the side street and walk in what looks to be the entrance. One half of the plain, unassuming establishment is a small Asian grocery store. A young man stands up from the cash counter and says, “Here for lunch?” I am. I’m the only customer for the entire time I’m there, although a couple of people come in for goods from the grocery store during my stay. I take out one of the books I had just purchased, and begin reading an introduction, that is, a scholar’s opinions.

After a few minutes, a young woman walks up to my table with the prerequisite pen and notepad. I order the Jumbo Combination Pho, notated in parentheses on the menu as “Fawm.” She wants to make sure I know that I’m ordering soup. I assure her I know it is, and asked her if the family that owns the restaurant is Vietnamese. She said no. She knew the original recipe for Pho was probably Vietnamese, but, she said, “We are Hmong.” I looked at her, thought about the name, looked at the tapestries on the walls, and realized this was a good place to be.  

While I wait for my soup, I walk about and look at the tapestries hanging from the walls. There are three of them, very exquisite, colorful and detailed.  They tell stories. The human figures, dressed in black, expertly stitched, carry out tasks of life. Farming, buying and selling, playing. One of the tapestries, though,  tells a different story. Some of the people have machines guns. Others cross a river, the Mekong. I know about this story, and to see it sewn so well brings tears. As it should. I sit down and wait for my meal.

She brings out the Jumbo Combo Pho. It looks like the whole pot, a huge bowl of noodles and goods slooshing and steaming from rim to rim. Ah….heaven. Still, I’m the only one here. I take chopsticks in the left hand, spoon in the right, and go to work. The soup is a world unto itself’. Nuggets representing the entire cow swim in a sargasso sea of noodles. Not wanting to appear rude, I finish the monstrosity. Ok, I’m a bit of a glutton. I can’t wait to go back.

My stomach distended, I waddle through the grocery section. I recognize a few things, and some of them interest me. I don’t plan on buying anything, though, until I spot the dried squid for $1.99 a pack. I’ve been looking for this since I was stationed in northern California in 1982. I buy three packs, and promise I’ll be back. I will. And so will you.