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Thoughts of a Karen
What kind of Karen am I?
I am a middle-aged, blonde — thinking I can still be fit, driving a close-to-new SUV.
I live in Minneapolis…but not in the suburbs.
I grew up in a small town in North Dakota and dreamed of living in a big city. I took a couple of detours (for ~40 years!) before I finally got back to the Midwest, last year in September.
It’s been wonderful…and terrible.
The Cities
People in this area simply say ‘The Cities’ meaning Minneapolis and St. Paul.
My parents don’t have passports and rarely flew in airplanes — even across the US. We took a couple of big road trips in my childhood “everyone should see a national park”, but never, ever went to any cities. “Why would you do that for a vacation?” my parents asked. “More hassle than it’s worth.” We would literally drive around any cities we might encounter “take the bypass”.
Of course teenaged me was fascinated. My first trip to Minneapolis was not to party or to celebrate, but to do academic research. At 19, I drove the three plus hours from Fargo directly to the U of M and went straight to the main university library. I was there to research a paper on Native American cultural traditions. This was pre-internet, and I had never seen such a big…
