The Best Meal I Ever Had

Today, a post, and my first since September. I wrote what follows a number of years ago. With a pen. In a notebook. Kicking it old-school, I think you call that.

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The Best Meal I Ever Had
Including attempted vivid descriptive recall which
hopefully can demonstrate at least one
"why?", which was a portion of
the requested assignment which was
assigned to me by my much-loved
sister-in-every-way-but-biological, Deena.

The city of Duluth, MN is built on a hillside that slopes toward the western end of Lake Superior. It's the largest city in the northern half of Minnesota & is home to the College of St. Scholastica and the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

The city is a major shipping hub, with miles of railroad situated near the harbor. Duluth is connected by the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and by the Atlantic Ocean to the rest of the world.

Because of Lake Superior, Duluth doesn't get particularly warm in the summer. It can be beastly cold in the winter, as well as snowy, and because of this, travel from downtown - on the lake - to anywhere-other-than-downtown can be treacherous.

Myself, I've never been much of a fan of Duluth. More to the point: I despise that city. For no reason that I've ever been able to pin down, I've always had a deep and abiding dislike for Duluth. There are others who share my opinion, and I'm sure this affects Duluth not one bit.

There are others, though - many others - who cherish & worship the city.

That I can't understand it doesn't change it.

Maybe it's because of The Depot, a rail museum & history center. Maybe it's because of the lift bridge & the lake itself - it is a beautiful place. Maybe it's because of the nightlife. Or the educational opportunities. Maybe it's a combination. Probably no one could point at one single thing and say, "this is why I love Duluth!". Or, "This is why I hate Duluth!"

Life just doesn't work that way.

There are good things about the city.

One of them, dining-wise, is Grandma's restaurant. Or perhaps it's a bar-and-grill. I don't remember exactly. Grandma's is the kind of place that does burgers & fries, and does them well. I wouldn't say that it's world-famous - I don't know if a person from Dublin or Moscow would know what it was, or even someone from Akron, for that matter - but it's certainly well-known in Minnesota. Grandma's also sponsors an annual marathon, and while they're not a national chain, they do have at least one other restaurant ...

Forget Duluth. Assuming it's not snowing & you can drive up the hill, leave it in your rear-view mirror. Drive up Central Entrance & take Highway 53 north, past the Miller Hill Mall, past the airport, past everything. Keep driving north through Twig, past the entrance from Cloquet, and twelve miles from there, take a right on Kauppi Lake Road. Kauppi Lake Road is a gravel track, barely two lanes wide. You shouldn't worry about that, though, because once you've turned right on to Kauppi Lake Road, you should stop, get out of your car, and find a way to be able to have a good look at The Sign. Posted by the land owner so as to be visible from the highway, The Sign is well worth the stop, should you ever find yourself driving north on Highway 53, about 10 minutes north from the Highway 53 entrance from Cloquet. Anyway ....

It's still a bit of a drive from here, so take one last look at The Sign, get back in your car, get turned around, and get back on the highway.

Next town is Cotton, home of the annual fiddle contest.

Ten minutes north of that, you'll see a small, tiny little shack on the right, set back from the highway about a hundred yards. If it's summer, the grass is always neatly-trimmed. Winter, the driveway is plowed free of snow. Yet there never seems to be any other sign of life ....

Ten minutes after that, also on the right, you'll pass Half-Moon Lake. Just past it is the exit for Highway 37, which will take you east to Hibbing. That drive takes about 25 minutes, if that's where you're going. But you're not. Stay on the highway.

As you continue to drive north, you'll pass Porky's Building Center - this time on the left - a rest stop (right), the Paul Wellstone Memorial (right), the Eveleth Golf Course (right), the Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board building (left), you'll drive through the town of Eveleth, through Midway, then through an underpass & to the left ... And a vista will open up in front of you.

Highway 53 winds through the city of Virginia, curving gradually to the west, then back north again. Down in to a minor valley then back out again & across the Laurentian Divide, to continue north through Britt, through Cook, through Orr, through a hundred little towns on the way to International Falls, a hundred miles father north.

Once you're through that underpass & you've rounded the corner, though, the view is pretty spectacular. To your right rises a mountain of dusty, rust-red rock & dirt, what was excavated from the iron mine pit just to its north, and at the top is parked a retired mine truck, a dump truck bigger than a modest-size house & painted bright yellow. There are observation decks & informational plaques as well, and the view from the top is wonderful. In the valley below you, straddling Highway 53, is Virginia. symmetrical streets criss-crossing the landscape, with some of the bigger buildings in town rising from the grids as landmarks: the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency's building, public works building, the high school, the town's water tower, the steam plant ....

Beyond the town, other mountains of iron ore are visible, as well as mine buildings, steam issuing from them to tower high in the air. Between the mines, pine forest - dark green & lush - stretching in all directions toward the ends of the valley.

Drive down into the valley, about a mile father north, and you'll come to a stop light. The cross street is 12th Avenue South. Turn right here, with a Holiday gas station to your right, followed by a McDonald's, with Target set behind both. To the left is the Thunderbird Mall. At the end of the block on the right, just before the stop sign, is Grandma's.

Years ago, when I lived in the area as a kid, it was a Mr. Steak. Directly inside the door is a cash register & hostess' station, a partition behind that running most of the length of the rectangular building, separating booths set on either side. At the end of this, an area for busing, and for waiters & waitresses to wait. On the left side, tables are set against the wall. Windows on that wall face 12th Avenue South and the mall & houses beyond. On the right-side wall, more booths are placed leading up to the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen, the employees' area, and end of the tables on the left wall is an open area bordered with booths, and filled with tables.

In the Mr. Steak days, this was the smoking section of the restaurant. As Mr. Steak vanished, so eventually did the smoking section of any Minnesota restaurant. Or bar.

I'd been to the restaurant a million times with family, both when it was Mr. Steak and as its Grandma's incarnation. The dark wood, dark carpet, and dark walls didn't change with the name - the only thing to change significantly was the menu. Oh, and posters and pictures and signs went up on the walls. If you think of the decor in any Applebee's, you've just about got it. That's the restaurant. It turned from a place that did steaks and dinners fairly well, to a place that does burgers and sandwiches fairly well. Nothing spectacular. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary. But still, good.

I have to imagine that the time was nearly fifteen years ago now, probably early July of 1994. There was a time - and it doesn't seem like it was all that long ago - that I couldn't remember anything really significant from fifteen years ago! Time flies, I guess. Whether or not you're having fun.

We'd gone north to visit family, and a stop that we'd always make was to see my mom & brother & step-dad. This time we'd arranged to meet my mom for lunch - I don't remember why, as we'd normally just visit the lake house - just the four of us. Kat hadn't been born yet, and Adam would have been not much more than two years old. It was one of the rare times that we got to have her all to ourselves - there was always a hustle & bustle at the house, with family & company coming & going - and because of that, it was special. She'd brought a present for Adam, a stuffed Simba (from the Lion King) that he dragged with him everywhere he went for the longest time. She loved him so very much, and she was one of his very favorite people. I'm sad for him, sometimes - he doesn't remember her much - and for Kat, too. She never met her namesake.

I don't remember what I had to eat, or whether I enjoyed it. I do remember sitting next to her, enjoying a quiet lunch before we parted, all of us back to rushing here and there, back in the thick of the rat race. I can remember that it was a beautiful, sunny day, and that for a time on that long-ago July afternoon, we were happy just to be, as the world outside rushed by.

It's sad to think of how easy it is to take those sorts of moments for granted.