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Speaker 1: Long ago, when I bought a Manhattan apartment, my mother Grace,

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gave me a clay coffee cup with Minnesota painted on

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it and our state bird, the Loon, so i'd remember

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where I come from. Though at age forty four, was

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pretty well embedded in me in college announcing on a

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classical music radio station, I managed to refit my Minnesota

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accent to sound educated, but I still have a keen

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sense of insignificance like all other Minnesotans, comes with the territory.

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

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and Scott died young and alcoholic, and Bob is famous

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for obscurity. And Walter Mondale was the politest candidate for

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president in American history and the biggest loser, and Broncol

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mcgirski was actually Canadian. My mother was a good mother.

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She told stories about me, how when Dad went off

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to join the army in World War Two, I wouldn't

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let anyone sit in his chair at the head of

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the table. Daddy's chair, I said, and I could be

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quite forceful about it. She worried about me, how I

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enjoyed lighting fires, and how I love to play on

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the Mississippi shore, though I'd been told not to. She

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worried about drowning, and about tornadoes, and in the Glamor

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if a storm came up, we always went to the

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southwest corner of the basement, and as authorities had said

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to do, everyone except me. I like to stand in

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the yard and watch the storm arrive, and see the

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branches of trees shake in the wind, hoping for the

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sight of a funnel cloud. When I was sad, a disappointed,

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felt cheated of life's pleasures, she always said to me,

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what's the matter? Did the dog pee on your cinnamon toast?

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Which always made me grin the thought of our aged

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cocker spaniel climbing up on the table and lifting his

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left hind leg. It makes me smile just to think

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of it now. It was her own unique line. No

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other mother said it. She knew how much I loved

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toast with butter, sugar and cinnamon on it. It was

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her line for me. I was not a good son.

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A good son is one who visits his mother regularly,

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and I was too busy to do then. I ran

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around a lot. Sometimes I traveled in fancy company. I

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was once in a movie directed by Robert Altman and

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financed in part by the poh Lad family and Carl Pohlad,

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the richest man in Minnesota, sat next to my mother

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at the movie premiere and the two of them carried

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on an extensive conversation which did not phase my mother

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a I was proud of her. My mother was one

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of thirteen children of William and Merriam on Longfellow Avenue

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South in Minneapolis, and sometimes during the depression, she went

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door to door peddling peanut butter sandwiches that she had

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made herself. When mister Poland said to her, you must

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be very proud of your son, she said, I'm very

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proud of all of my children, which of course is

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the correct answer. I have two nephews who are very

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good to their mother, and I stand in awe of them,

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and I think, there goes the man that I meant

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to be. They're polite to their father, but they dote

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on their mother. She lives in Minnesota, and one boy

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lives in France and the other in Vietnam. But they

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have married excellent women who recognize the royalty of the Gramma,

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and they have produced delightful grandchildren, and they have gotten

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excellent jobs so they can afford to fly the grammar

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to visit the grandchildren and vice versa. And I have

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looked at videos of visitation scenes, and it is so

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clear that the delight of the grammar is a factor

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in the production of fabulous grandkids. I remember my grammas

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as austere figures in Dowager outfits, whom a child was

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supposed to revere and maintain silence and not bechruck childish,

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and not expect physical contact due to their fragility. I

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was to present a picture of perfect rectitude, even if

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it wrecked me, which it sort of did. My sister

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in law's grandkids whoop and they chortle, and they climb

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all over the grammar, and it's clear that they will

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grow up to save the world and not become an

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old sourpuss like me. People look at me and they say,

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what's wrong. Well, it's the stone face and the lowered brow.

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It's the grim effect. It was the effect of eating

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toast with dog urine on it. But when I take

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my Minnesota coffee cup down and I fill it with coffee,

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I think of my mother and I smile her one

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hundred and tenth birthday is coming up soon, and I

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really should do something special in her honor, such as

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talk to you about her in a way that makes

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you feel good.