Down Some Country Road

My town is very unusual and plenty of my friends wonder why I live out here, so far from the excitement of life!
by Charlie Leck

My dog and I took a little ride yesterday. The Gopher (University of Minnesota) football game was over and they lost again – this time to the Michigan State University Spartans – after playing tough for three quarters. I needed to shake some cob webs from my head, as they say, and I cranked up the old car and drove out our gravel driveway and up our gravel road and just roamed around my town, looking here and there at pretty much nothing.

What is it that inveigles me so much about this town? When one realizes that it is part of the metropolitan complex – a virtually suburban community – only 25 miles from the heart of Minneapolis – one is then caught up in its wonder. How can there be such opens spaces – these meadows, rolling hills, wetlands and beautiful farms – in such a large and populated urban setting?

Someone did something right a number of years ago and I owe them a lot of gratitude. This land and these opens spaces, you see, are protected. Housing developments and commercial or industrial complexes are forbidden out here.

I drove straight north on our tidy, but graveled, road. I passed two handsome golf courses, at least five pretty, little farms, acres and acres of pastureland and a couple dozen cozy houses nestled on very large plats of land. At the highway I zigged right and then quickly zagged north again on another gravel road. I looked out at two or three more small farms neatly fenced and maintained, a few houses sitting on the shores of a small lake and a nursery where a fellow grows trees to sell. After a couple miles the road climbed a small hill and wound this way and then that and I found myself in a very attractive county park.

I pushed the car slowly through the park. There were still some colorful leaves clinging to oak, maple and elm trees, but the wind was strong today and the leaves were falling gently all around the open land. A large lake was at the center – the heart – of the parkland. As I drove on, I saw the bike trails and hiking trails snaking through the park hither and yon.

There are plenty of people out here who want to put an end to all of this. They think they missed out on the American dream – the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They figure there should be housing developments over here and an industrial park right there. At the southwest corner of this fantastic parkland there should be a Super Target complex with a big, macadam parking lot with those white lines into which ones squeezes a thousand cars. I visualize the big lamps that give light to the commercial corner at night. The sign for the Target Store is bright red and lit up at night and the field of black soil that gives birth to yearly crops is no longer there. Kentucky Fried Chicken will want to put a drive-through nearby and someone will figure we need a fitness center and a bigger gas station and convenience market. And then the roads will need to be paved because who wants to drive his black Lexus over dusty roads on a dry summer day. (Should there be a question-mark here? I don’t think so!)

What will happen to our wild turkeys and the red fox who like it here? To the white tailed deer who frolic over the lands and through the trees? To the bald eagles who nest in the tree-tops along the lake shore? To the fellow who nurses beautiful trees to just the right size and shape? To the creek that runs with clear, clean water all the way through our town to the little known lake on its south boundary?

I drive past John and Kathy’s pleasant horse farm, with the red and white jumps neatly set up in their riding ring. There’s Whee’s remarkable place on nearly 600 acres of lovingly cared-for, heavily forested land. Virgil’s house is at the end of that pretty driveway lined with drooping willows.

There are no gated communities and no sprawling housing complexes. I don’t pass a single blinking light trying to convince me I’m hungry or thirsty. If I want fast-food, I need to drive east toward the city – to where the suburban sprawl spreads its ugliness across the land. Or, I can drive west six miles to where the sprawl once again commences. But here – here in the same county that is home to Minneapolis – there is nothing to distract the eye from the beauty of the land – from the rolling meadows, patches of forest, streams and creeks, fence-lined farms and long, long driveways leading to hidden homes.

I suddenly realize that I’ve been driving for nearly two hours. The sun is very low and the shadows that spread across the open fields are very, very long. The autumn sky in the west is painted in marvelous hues of red, pink, blue, yellow and orange. Some incredible artist did this work. I pull the car to the shoulder and climb from it. The sunset is spectacular and I wish that I’d brought my camera.

“You don’t need to capture it,” I tell myself. “Just enjoy it.”

This is my town and I love it here. The dog’s head and shoulders are sticking out of the car’s rear window. He is watching me and wondering, I think, why I am so melancholy. I don’t how to explain it to him. I free him from the car and he sits at my feet and we watch the sunset together.

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Oh, You Turkey!

I love living in my town – out here in the countryside – where it’s so quiet, peaceful and interesting!
by Charlie Leck

We’ve been living out here, 25 miles west of Minneapolis, for 22 years now. We’ve owned this lovely piece of property for more than 30 years. Perhaps it’s a guardianship rather than ownership. I like the concept that many Native Americans have – certainly that the Dakota have – that concedes that you can’t really own land. It belongs to something far greater than you. We are called to be kind to the land and to leave it behind, when we depart, as healthy and as good as it was when we took that guardianship.

“…the eastern Dakotas, whom Europeans frequently referred to as the Santee Sioux – Mdewakantons, Wahpekutes, Sissetons, and Wahpetons – were a woodland people and stayed behind in the bountiful land of the Upper Mississippi River, where prairie and forest met to provide a rich array of resources. The forests, lakes and rivers teemed with game, waterfowl, and fish; herds of buffalo still roamed the prairie; lush vegetation provide a variety of foodstuffs that included wild rice, berries, nuts, and edible roots; and sugar maples yield the sweetness of their sap. The rich soil also proved ideal for the cultivation of small plots of maize in the short northern summers. The seasonal harvest of all these resources led to an annual pattern of circular migration for the Dakotas, often by way of the rivers and lakes that ribboned the region. European observers would describe the Dakotas as ‘always wandering,’ but in fact they moved with purpose in an age-old cycle that followed the rhythm of the seasons.” [Mary Lethert Wingerd*]

To the Dakota, as Wingerd says in another section of her extraordinary book, North Country, “…land was not a commodity to be bought and sold…” and “…a concept of exclusive land rights was incomprehensible, even immoral, to the Indians.”

It was this concept about private ownership of something that could not be owned or possessed, that led to the violent disputes between the Dakota and the white settlers in this region. In their treaties with the white settlers the, Dakota thought they were agreeing to share the right to inhabit their lands and not to own and destroy the resources that the land provided.

And, now, here I am, proudly owning this parcelle de terre that really belongs only to Great Mother Earth.

Years ago – 30 perhaps – my dear wife, Anne, and a neighbor, Lucy, with whom she shared an adventurous spirit and a respect for nature, plotted to restore the wild turkey to their part of the countryside. They ordered crates of young turkeys that they could distribute throughout the neighborhood. All of us, who knew them and their quirkiness, chuckled and passed it off as just another silly waste of money. They cared not! They believed!

I cannot and do not say it was their activities back then that is responsible for Minnesota now having a wild turkey hunting season, but perhaps… Who knows? They likely share the credit with some other goofy dreamers.

Now, however, we share this belle terre upon which we live with a large number of turkeys who wander throughout the woods and over our fields. They are well acquainted with our big bins in which we store corn for the winter feeding of our flock of sheep and lambs – good, yummy, healthy, organic corn that is difficult to find.

As you can see from the photograph, they have a bit of the prehistoric look about them. They are snobbish and removed and appear to have distaste for us. And, they do not like to be observed. They act almost as if we have some kind of perversion in our desire to photograph them.

I keep my camera close at hand, waiting for a moment to capture them. They move more quickly than one would imagine. They won’t show themselves full-faced to me.

This photograph in the heading is the best I’ve done so far. Would that I had a better, larger lens in place that day, but, alas, I did not.

Notice how they blend in with the leaves and the surrounding woodland. It’s difficult to contrast them and separate them from their surroundings.

Jasper, our wonder-dog, seems to have some great respect for them. While I was trying to photograph them from the driver’s seat of my car, this respectful, black dog was cowering over on the other side of the back seat, unwilling to even glance out at them. I suspect he may have tangled with them once upon a time and learned a lesson or two from them.

Anne and I are overjoyed that they are here and we are willing to share this lopin de terre de Dieu with them. Hunters are not welcomed here. We think the turkeys deserve the corn they rustle from us and we like the mellow sounds they produce when they are passing by.

As for me, I’ve put a larger lens in place and I will keep carrying my camera with me and hope for another meet-up with these elegant creatures with whom we share cette terre.

*Wingerd, Mary Lethert: North Country, The Making of Minnesota [University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2010]

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My Town

What do you call a place that has no center point, no sense of balance and not a single place to buy a quart of milk?
by Charlie Leck

In 1994, I wrote a letter to the editor of the weekly newspaper (if you dare call it that) that covers happenings in My Town and a handful of other villages in the region. I was trying to be satirical, but a friend of mine says that I don’t understand the subtleties of satire well enough to be a satirist. Sure enough, a handful of people took it all seriously and the paper got a “rash” (or is it “rasher?”) of follow-up letters from its readers, complaining about the raving idiot who was so confused about the town in which he lived.

It might make good Sunday reading for you to go back 15 years and read what I wrote about My Town. Then you can decide for yourself if I am truly the village idiot.

Dear Editor:

Independence, Minnesota! This is my town. I live here; though I rarely get to tell people that. I usually have to say that I’m from Maple Pain because that’s what my post office address says. And, there is a downtown area in Maple Plain and all of us seem to want to associate ourselves with some downtown. Sometime I tell people I’m from Lyndale, which is not really a town, but it’s a neighborhood only a half-mile up the road and there’s a bit of a downtown there (if a gas station and tavern can be called that). I tell firemen I know that I’m from Delano because it’s that town’s fire department that will respond to fire emergencies at my home – except, I tell a lot of folks from Minnetrista that I’m from their town because the part of my farm where the livestock live is in that township and I don’t want them to get confused because their fire department (which is really the Mound Fire Department) is supposed to respond to fires on that part of my property except that they have made special (informal) arrangements with Maple Plain to cover for them because Maple Plain can get there so much more quickly. Most of my friends think I live in Watertown because my telephone exchange is called the “Watertown exchange.”

Confused? It’s really only the beginning…. The fact is, I live in Independence. It’s my town – my kind of town. There’s something that brings us all together in this town. None of us is exactly sure what we should tell people when they ask us where we live. I often draw a complete blank from people when I tell them I live in Independence, so I don’t do that anymore unless it is someone I enjoy confusing.

Now we’ve got a new city government building. The officials there had a big discussion about what to call the building. I suggested they call it the Maple Plain/Delano/Watertown/Mound/Orono/Lyndale/Loretto/Rockford City Center in Independence. I was only joking, but a few people took me seriously. So they dismissed my terrific idea that they call it “Independence Hall” and hang a big, cracked bell out in front, because they thought I was joking. I wasn’t.

One of my city councilpersons – I think he tells people he lives in Loretto – has proposed that all Independence telephones fall under the 479 exchange. He’s proposed this because it makes sense and is totally logical. Therefore, this proposal doesn’t stand a tinker’s chance in _________________________ (insert the name of a town you really dislike).

Well, I’ve always wanted to write an extremely important Letter to the Editor and now I’ve done it. Feels good! I’m still confused, but I feel better. My only hope is that the various fire departments around me know exactly what’s going on. I have nightmares that there is this giant fire in my hay barn and, while it burns, Delano, Mound and Maple Plain stand around arguing about who is supposed to cover it. Silly, isn’t it? It could never happen.

The editor of the paper was extremely happy to publish the letter. He said he thought it was “laughable.” At first I thought he meant that the letter was funny or comical. Then I started to think “laughable” might mean something else entirely.

Just the other night we had a city council meeting here in My Town that made me very, very proud of this place – this town like no other town around. I came home that night and told my wife that this was the first time I’d really been proud to live here. The opposing party, of course, took that as a statement of disloyalty and claimed I was unpatriotic and didn’t deserve to be the First Lady.

I wondered how they overheard this statement I made to my wife in the privacy of our bedroom. Or, is my wife an informant for the opposition?


If we've got a downtown in My Town this is it. It's the Ox Yoke Inn. We just call it the Ox Yoke around here. Right across the street from it there's an auto mechanic's garage. That's it!

I’ll write about that wonderful council meeting in the next few days.

Thousands and thousands of acres in My Town still produce hay and other crops even though we're less than 25 miles from downtown Minneapolis.

The Mayor of Casterbridge

The Burgermeister of my town is an extraordinary guy who has given, given, given, without reservation, to his community; and he can’t be thanked enough!
by Charlie Leck

If you’ve read here something to the contrary, disregard it. Thomas Hardy is my favorite novelist of all. I have never enjoyed reading novels any more than when I have one of his works in my hands -- from Tess of the D’Urbervilles… and Jude the Obscure… and Far from the Madding Crowd… to The Mayor of Casterbridge! Wow!

These are the thrillers from the old days – books that keep you turning pages and wondering what’s going to come next.

I live in the town of Independence, Minnesota. My town is about 25 miles straight west of Minneapolis.

The Mayor of my town lives up the road a piece from me. I’m always drawn to looking out over his farmland and I’ve taken some photos of the place and his big old dairy barn. I always label these photos as “the farm of the Mayor of Casterbridge.” It’s an allusion to the Thomas Hardy novel that I so thoroughly enjoyed. When I refer to our Mayor, I call him the Mayor of Casterbridge.

Our mayor is a dandy guy! There are a number of people around town who insinuate that he is selfish and dishonest. Those people are crazy! They don’t begin to understand. I’m going to tell you the real and honest story about him.

First, however, in the interest of full disclosure, I want you to know that I am on the other side of the political spectrum from him. He’s a danged conservative Republican. He adamantly supported people like Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and John McCain. Now, you might think this automatically disqualifies him from my list of admired people. It’s difficult to overlook the stupidity of supporting a second term of office for George W. Bush, but I pinch my nose and get quickly by it.

Over the years, I’ve attended, maybe, 50 or 60 City Council meetings that the Mayor has presided over. As a matter of fact, I attended another of them a few nights ago.

If our Mayor has a weakness, it’s that he’s too nice. I wonder occasionally if he shouldn’t’ be more tenacious – you know, show some teeth or a fang! Other councilpersons say the dumbest, dangedest things and the Mayor just smiles at them with patience and understanding.

Last night, the Mayor gave a report on his activities on behalf of the citizens of my town, our wider community and the state. Now, keep in mind that he’s a bachelor and he has more time on his hands than many of us, but also realize that he’s a farmer with cows, barns to clean, fields to tend and machinery to keep up.

In the two weeks since the last meeting, the Mayor explained what he’s been up to – I wrote as fast as I could and just didn’t keep up with him and missed a few things.

• He attended a Land Use Advisory Committee meeting


• He was at the Police Academy Graduation Ceremony


• He went out to Oregon and represented our state at a meeting there


• He went to an Active Living Grant Committee meeting


• He was at the State of the County ceremony and speech.


• He attended the Hennepin County Environmental Services Commission meeting


• He represented our community at the Community Action League conference

Mind you, I really did miss a few of the meetings he went to. Around me the audience was chuckling lightly as he went through the list. A couple of his adversaries on the Council were burying their faces so that they didn’t show any expression while the Mayor listed his most recent busy-ness.

On the little note pad I had with me at the meeting, I merely scribbled out “WOW!”

Three very important reports were made to the City Council last night – a financial audit report, a report on the serious drop in home evaluations in the community (that naturally impacts the amount of property tax income the city can expect), and the police and safety report. I watched the Mayor of my town as the reports were presented. He never missed a word. He was totally attentive each and every second of each report. He asked important and relevant questions. He tried to clear up matters that the audience or councilpersons might not have understood.

Now get this! He’s served as our Mayor for nearly three decades. In that time, the people who want to get him out have called him a cheat, a liar, a crook, a common eccentric and an uncommon, egocentric nut-case. My, oh my! I guess that’s one of the costs of being in politics.

I call him honorable. Simply that!

I have a feeling that this is his last couple of years in service to our community in this office. It’s just a feeling, mind you. For all I really know, he may go after another four year term.

When he does hang it up and hands the reins of the community over to another, we ought to have the biggest darn fete any small community could possibly put together. I have never seen a public servant like him and the whole community needs to rise up in gratitude and toast and honor him. I’ll tell you this: If we do stage such a celebration, there will be Governors, Senators, Congresspersons, Mayors, Commissioners, Secretaries of departments of government, and maybe even a President here to extend their hands in appreciation and commendation to him. And they won’t all be Republicans – not by a long shot.

I am enormously proud to be a resident and citizen of his community. He’s one of the few Republicans I ever vote for, but I always do so proudly. He is a kind gentleman and a terribly good neighbor.

I just don’t know a public servant like him and I’m glad he presides over my town. I can’t thank him enough for his years of service.