My friend's house is finally getting the work needed to make it livable again. The roof is done. The large tree branches over the power line which crosses their sidewalk out to the street have finally gotten removed. Mostly, anyway. Both were fairly "v" shaped, and both got cut below where the branches forked. The weight is gone. The two much smaller upside down "v"s remain hooked over the wire. Possibly another good stiff (straight) wind will knock them loose, but we'll have to see. At least they can safely use their sidewalk now.
Their south wall is still tarped and boarded over. While the insurance company offered them a large sum for an extended motel stay while the work got done, they had opted to continue living in the rest of the house instead. It was livable with the privacy from the living room being boarded up, after which they'd cleaned out the glass all over, allowing safe access through it, and best of all, the ramp she needed had been quickly replaced. Staying was much less disruptive to their lives than moving things out and back in, plus leaving the house unguarded. My friend is finally relaxing into the process, now that something is actually happening.
I reread the original post from May 10, and realized I'd neglected to cover the main reason the national media had covered the little twister. After all, it had damaged only 3 buildings in her town, then skipped to nailing a historical home two town over. Those weren't covered in the original TV reporting. They weren't what was important.What had been covered was what was out in public view, a rather peculiar effect of the winds. But in order to get across why it meant what it did to so many people, I need to give some background first.
The area is generally referred to as Chisago Lakes. Yes, that's Chisago with an "s", not a "c", no matter how many times the spellchecker insists otherwise. It sits about 30 to 40 miles northeast of St. Paul. A fairly tightly knit chain of lakes features prominently. US Highway 8 on its way to Wisconsin worms around and between those lakes and through the small communities which have grown up around them.
Mostly the area is rural, homes to people year round, though tourists are always welcomed. Supplementing homes, schools and churches are all kinds of small stores and other amenities. The area is small enough to be between Walmarts, say about 10 miles either side of its outskirts, but big enough to have a Dairy Queen, Arby’s, and McDonalds. It holds a vineyard and winery on its west end, Hazelden on its eastern end. A large modern library was built along the highway a bit over 12 years ago. The elementary school was recently located away from Highway 8, not for safety from the increasing traffic, but to change the land use to a dense cluster of identical, grey, pricey new homes.
One farm along 8 just east of the towns used to hold dozens of bison along with a store/restaurant, but the bison were discontinued a few years back when younger generations of the family were no longer interested in managing them. Some of the grazing land is now storage units. As a reminder, however, a life size statue of a bull still stands along the highway, where in winter it collects snow which gets dirty, then melts and refreezes overnight. On such mornings afterwards, one can often see a yellow icicle hanging from the lowest protuberance under it belly, dripping slowly until it melts.
Further east a bit is a popular state park, nestled along the St. Croix River, a nationally protected waterway and favored spot to put in a canoe or kayak, pull out at the next state park downstream, and get shuttled back to one's car.
Besides all the fish, turtles, and muskrats in the lakes, the observant person driving through the area can often spot sandhill cranes, wild turkeys, herons or egrets, ducks and geese, and the occasional reminder of other animals lying along the highway. The notorious Minnesota Attack Deer regularly get the harshest reminders that attacking cars or trucks was not their wisest final act.
Part of the highway is called the Moberg Trail, and local historians will inform anybody of how the famous Swedish author traveled through and based a book on the emmigrants in the area. The towns are proud of their Swedish connections, and most have “sister cities” back in Sweden. Summer festivals include that history in their themes.
They also did one more thing which features in why this tiny twister made the news. Part of the area tourist attractions is a series of hugely oversized adirondack chairs, placed here and there in parks and along lakeshores. Why? No clue. Maybe they couldn’t do what other Minnesota towns do with huge statues of fish, bragging about their record catch possibilities, so somebody in power got AN IDEA. To get a mental picture of the chairs, picture Lily Tomlin’s character Edith Ann in her huge chair. An agile person — or family — can climb up into them for a souvenir photo of the weird fun thing they did on that vacation. Each chair is a different color. Again, I have no clue why, though it’s possible each took a whole can of paint so they just mixed it up with the colors. Our chair in this story is red.
When the report of the tornado came through on the national news, what caught everybody’s attention was the fact that it blew the huge red chair, as well as either a dock or multiple docks, depending on the version of the report, out into and/or across the lake.
When we came up this summer, we noticed a dock still out in the lake in the second week of June. It hadn’t gone too far, so we were able to recognize it for the local municipal dock, a huge “T” shape with railings, perfect for kids with poles to go out on and try their hands at catching the abundance of 3” sunfish which had otherwise been enjoying the shade the dock cast only to get a sharp pain in their lip when they thought they’d also found the bonus of a quick meal. Several days later as we passed on the highway we noticed it had finally been towed back into place. I can only think it took a council meeting to justify the expense on their tiny town budget to get it hauled back. Taxes will be up a bit next year I’m sure.
But the red chair was nowhere to be seen. Yet. I expect it needed some TLC after its wild ride, not to mention another expense getting it hauled back in. Earlier this week my friend noted to me that it had finally been put back in place, so I took a look on my trip through this morning. Yep, it’s there, right along the shore of North Center Lake, sporting flags sticking out on both sides for the holiday. First glance makes it look as if they are wings and the chair is ready to fly off.
They must be expecting a possible repeat of its wild ride some time in the future. It’s been freshly painted, still mostly red. But someone with a sense of humor also painted a bright, huge, yellow life preserver on the chair!
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