Started: May 22, 2022

Finished: July 16, 2024

It’s been more than four years since I left my sun-drenched riverview office in a small-market city for a less-than-spacious, gray-cast corner office in the workingman’s east side of one of the country’s top MSAs. It had been time for me to fly – more than time. I’d grown up and spent 32 years of my life adjacent to or smack-dab-in a small-market city, and I knew I needed to venture to a girthier, more diverse market to ladder-step closer to my career goals.

When I accepted my long-targeted position, and its increased responsibilities, shiny title and shinier comp package, I acknowledged the less-than-scenic Payne-Phalen location as a worthwhile tradeoff. Though a bit … dreary at first glance, there were upsides. It was just north of the eastern skyline, so no need to navigate the traffic that clogged up the arteries in and out of the twin downtowns. There was an attached surface lot, so no need to pay for, or walk to and from in Minnesota-level inclement weather, an aging parking ramp. I could take twelve step across the street and get a mammogram at a well-regarded specialty health center. Best of all, there was a taco truck slinging craveable burria parked only half a block east and one block north, Mondays and Thursdays, April through November.

What I didn’t have, however, was my sunny, paved riverside walking trail, with its rusty refurbished railroad footbridge conveniently situated under my window. I was accustomed to descending four flights to the riverbank and getting a walk in each day – or at least each day that Midwestern conditions would permit. A critical part of my selectively routinized self’s routine, these little bursts of movement provided me with an outlet for stress, gave me a quiet opportunity to gnaw on little issues, and sent me into my afternoons with greater energy.

As I evaluated my new M-F neighborhood, I decided I wasn’t going to let the lack of slow-moving, sparkling water and serene greenery keep me from my daily walks. My second week at my new job, still terrified and bubbling over with imposter syndrome, I decided to take an amble around Payne-Phalen.

After exiting the building’s west doors, I took a sharp right turn up the avenue, smiling awkwardly as I passed one of my senior team peers, who was joking around with the Facilities manager. Odd, I thought. What could those two have in common?

“You can’t go up there!” one of them shouted at me. It was our CFO, Andrew, a dark-haired, olive-tinted 40-something sporting golf pants and a branded blue button-up. He kind of scared me, in the way all CFOs strike fear into marketing teams, but in a matter of months, I’d look back and find this fact hilarious. “No, please do not go up there on your own,” seconded Shane, the Facilities team’s bald, burly, heavily tattooed smartass.

“Uh, why?” I asked, looking at them quizzically. I knew this wasn’t the most upscale of neighborhoods, but it wasn’t that bad. Was it?

My mother worked in corrections for twenty-plus years, so I’m not naïve. I sport a healthy wariness of people, but walking through a residential neighborhood, any residential neighborhood, at noon wasn’t something I would think twice about. But, I did appreciate their concern.

“If you’re going for a walk, at least stick to the trail,” said Shane, gesturing to the front of the building, where a paved trail wound its way east and then north, through the medical industrial complex into which our building was plunked.

I tilted my head at the unlikely twosome like a confused dachshund, but complied, my heels clicking as I headed toward the charcoal-colored asphalt, shimmering in the day’s full sun.

I walked the trail that day, and many, many more. Sometimes, I even ventured off. If I had time, I’d take a hard left up Payne, into the little business district, which was dotted with ethnic Mom & Pop restaurants, a gem of an eatery with an incredible avocado-and-bean-burger, empty storefronts with clouded glass windows and sagging facades, vagrants pushing red plastic Target shopping carts, and so very much litter. Some days I’d walk quickly, thinking only of hitting my step and/or flights goal on my Garmin. Other days I’d linger, peering into storefronts, studying the residents, and, on one memorable occasion, trying an Oaxaca-stuffed corn quesadilla at a not-much-from-the-outside taqueria which would quickly become a favorite lunch stop.

When one of my dearest high school friends took a job just blocks away, we explored Payne-Phalen’s culinary offerings together, not infrequently the only two English speakers dining in at one of the vibrantly colored, rustically furnished Mexican eateries.

The residential neighborhood that butted up against our modest, beige-brick corporate HQ brimmed with old houses, pale paint peeling and falling to the ground in curlicues. Many residents did their best to make their spaces look homey and inviting, with pink petunias spilling out of window boxes in the summer, and a well-worn light-up Santa waving from the tiny yard after the snow fell. Some properties were in extreme disrepair. Sometimes, I felt judgment welling up. In those moments, I tried to consider that many of these folks, struggling with things I wouldn’t, despite my bleeding-heart nature, completely understand, may just not have the energy.

I’d lived in the Twin Cities metro before, tucked away in the tony far-east suburb of Stillwater, a postcard-quality purlieu on the St. Croix River. I’d worked close to Payne-Phalen, but, based on rumored reputation, I steered clear. Even compared to Roseville, the Advance Auto & Applebee’s retail hell where I officed, it was considered trash-laden, impoverished, and “crime-ridden.” Other city-dweller friends and acquaintances, when I’d share how far I’d wander from HQ, would shake their heads and implore me to “Be careful!”

But you know what? Everything was completely fine. Other than an occasional dude honking or hooting at me in my hourglassy sheath dresses – which, as a 40-something, I’ll take – I never had any trouble strolling probably a cumulative 1,000+ miles around Payne-Phalen. I enjoyed my time patronizing the diverse businesses, even if I was the only person of my particular hue inside. I smiled and nodded as I passed dusty homeless people; if anyone said ‘hi,’ I always said hi back. If a man tried to be too friendly, I would say plainly that I was already taken. Perhaps surprisingly, that always worked.

As I logged my miles around Payne-Phalen, over to Dayton’s Bluff, and around the North End, a conversation I’d had with a professional acquaintance stayed top-of-mind. Over Himalayan food on a swanky stretch of Grand Avenue, he shared some eye-popping tales about moving through the world as a Black man.

“The most important thing,” he said, “Even if a guy is trying to flirt or being a little obnoxious or whatever … remember, he may have been treated poorly by women like you his whole life. Just respond in a way that leaves him some dignity.”

Dignity.

That stuck.

Time has passed. Another two years. I no longer have my little corner office overlooking both the St. Paul skyline and the perpetually congested Interstate 35. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve taken one of my favorite “walking meetings” around Payne-Phalen.

In fact, save for my cheery yellow home office with the VersaDesk and the perky little pink and red keyboard, I have no office at all.

Which is what has driven me out to the deepest red part of a Pantone #561eff state.

A break. Some time to reflect.

Abandoned houses and eerie, empty farmsteads rise out of the deep green hills. Classic red barns are now a faded shade of pink, and crumbling. The towns that exist appear frozen in time: Homes along a main street have yards full of 70s hatchbacks, cracked baby pools, and other assorted clutter. There’s a grocery store with a wall display of greeting cards so old they’ve all faded to a rainbow of pastels. Clouded windows provide a dust-covered view of once-thriving retail businesses and long-closed diners with yellowing vinyl stools still expectantly standing upright.

On the street, I pass a leathery woman of indeterminate age donning a fuchsia “Happy Vibes Only” tank top. She’s chattering away to her Brewers hat-wearing companion. I can only pick up a handful of words, until she raises her voice to declare, “And I can’t even talk to her, because my sister is a Democrat!”

Dignity.

There have been countless highbrow analyses in highbrow publications like The Atlantic, penned by prototypical liberal elites boasting Ivy League credentials, about what motivates this demographic: poor and rural, still trying to make a living in communities where the one major employer, often a paper mill or other manufacturer, has moved out.

Dignity.

I grew up in such a community, where the railroad threw the switch and chugged off, leaving only a sprawling, empty compound with rusted, weedy tracks.

Who or what is to blame for these living ghost towns and the accompanying deep economic misfortunes? The answer is, of course, that it’s complicated. Unions broke up. Companies moved overseas, where labor was cheaper and labor laws, where they even existed, were more favorable to the bottom line. And, probably most impactfully of all, technology and automation made many positions obsolete.

Dignity.

In my little town, a significant percentage of Dads worked, in some capacity, for the railroad – and so did Dad’s Dads. And uncles. And older brothers. You get the idea.

Those jobs were accessible to anyone who wanted to put in the time to learn them, generally not requiring formal education after high school. They provided a union wage scale, a healthy benefits package, and, if not a glorious retirement, at least a cushion. Families had modest but well-kept homes, boats and/or ATVs, and summer vacations in the Dells. This work provided and working-middle-class existence, and it was all right. It was what we knew.

And while life felt pretty … average, from my now privileged vantage point, I see how good it was, and how far we had to fall.

And I see how far so many have already fallen.

Dignity.

The ticket to the middle class my diploma-only Dads had doesn’t exist in the way it once did, not in my ore-dusted hilltop community, in Payne-Phalen, or here in Goldenrod.

My town of Proctor Knott peered down at a more cosmopolitan (hey, it’s all relative) Great Lakes city of 100K plus, with hospitals and universities and possibilities. And, we were two hours from a metro area of 3.5M, which had so very many more.

Most of us pursued life in one of the above, screeching out of our pop-3,000 community faster than the DM & IR had.

For those in Payne-Phalen, the skyline of the aforementioned 3.5M-person metro is literally in their sightline. The opportunities are there, but I’m not going to dumb down the arduous task of shaking generational poverty by yammering about anyone’s bootstraps.

Last night, sipping a Bud Light and eavesdropping in a main street bar full of 70s game show-watching patrons, I didn’t sense despair. I sensed … resignation. And overheard a sort of … angry wistfulness.

But, of course, that’s just my perception.

I’ve lived a different sort of life. Spent time in different sort of places. There’s a lot I don’t know.

What I do know is that we don’t have Doc Brown to take us back in time, lighting up the tracks off Highway 2, bringing power back to the marinara maker at Michelina’s, and flipping the switch on the Fourdrinier machine.

It’s human nature that when we look back on anything that’s gone, well, the issues we recognized in the moment get real hazy, we get all weepy and nostalgic, and we have transient amnesia about the billowing red flags. (I certainly have a few romantic relationships that followed this pattern I could detail … perhaps in a future piece.)

There were problems in the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, or whatever era we now wish to hold up as the great, golden years. Big, big problems. But maybe …

Dignity

Felt like it was just a little easier to come by.