I was born in Fargo, North Dakota.
I have five vivid memories from the years of 1964-1971 that I lived in Fargo.
1. I was always cold and it always seemed to be snowing.
2. The boy across the street, Brady (who I was in love with), ran me over with his bike, which still included training wheels, because I refused to get out of his way.
3. Because the Vietnam War was on television every night, I thought it was a dramatic television show, like Perry Mason, only with dead people.
4. I was deathly afraid of losing my boots in a snow drift and getting frostbite, or being suffocated by a snowdrift, looking for my lost boots.
5. I wanted to marry Paul McCartney.
Those five memories have pretty much set the course I've followed the rest of my life:
1. I hate cold weather.
2. Men, with their proverbial bikes stuck in proverbial first gear, have, at certain stages of my life, run head-first right over me only to move onto the next relationship hair flying in the wind, no hands, and no training wheels.
3. I use fiction of all kinds, including my own, to escape thinking about the bad things in life, to avoid change, to avoid dating, to avoid housework, and to keep myself from brooding. Usually about the cold weather.
4. Did I mention I hate snow?
5. I married, and divorced, the cute guy in the band, although unlike Paul, he was a drummer and lacked a bank account.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that the Coen brothers made a movie called Fargo. I even like that it’s about something bad, like a brutal murder, because nothing bad ever happened there, except on television, or far, far away. It’s all wrong, which is why the city of Fargo was ripe for dramatic tension of the Coen Brothers sort. I’m just sorry I didn’t think of it first.
Fargo isn’t so much a place, as it is my state of mind. It goes with me everywhere, and even though I keep forty miles away from it, I will always be close by for the rest of my life. Never mind that most of the movie wasn’t even shot in Fargo, but in Brainerd, Minnesota. The state of mind in Brainerd isn’t much different. I know, because I’ve been there, too. The Co-Bros just thought Fargo sounded better as a title. And it does, especially if you speak with that famous Fargo accent. Do the people of Fargo talk this way? Sure they do. Heck-ya. My mom still does. Heck-ya. Even when I read about Fargo, I can’t help but slip into a Fargo dialect. It’s no wonder I love to start the day with Get your coat, we’re goin’ in the boat, then we’re goin to the Fargodome to see a show-ya. I even still say “uff-da” when I’ve had a bad day, like the main character, Margie, played by Frances McDormand. My aunt was even called Margie. I think most of the women over 40 there are named Marge. I wish my name was Marge.
So readers, tell me about where you were born. Is it a state of mind or just a place?
