The Swedish Death Cleaning continues at Casa Fernlund but at a slower pace than a few weeks ago. The other day, The Bohunk opened one of the handful of boxes remaining, and it was evident no one had seen the inside since Disco was raising its ugly head in the 1980s.
Inside was a perfectly folded edition of the Minneapolis Tribune dated July 12, 1980. It looked like, except for fading, when I picked it up off the front step of our house in Blooming-ton that eventful day.
In those days, the Tribune was a couple of inches wider than the paper you hold today. That meant an additional column on each page—six sections with 56 pages. Reading the paper was not a small undertaking. Still, it was the favored activity to enjoy with coffee and a smoke.
July 12 is my birthday, and that day in 1980 started early. The Bohunk and I were proud parents of three blondies, all less than 10 years old. The Bohunk was at the end of her fourth pregnancy, and we didn’t know if there’d be another girl this time. Ultrasound to steal the gender surprise wasn’t common back then; regardless, we wanted to be surprised on delivery day.
Sometime before 5 a.m., Becky woke me and said it was time to go to the hospital. The girls were snug in their beds, so we called Grandma to come over and be there when they woke. As she arrived, we bolted to Fairview Southdale Hospital. I parked at the front entrance and brought the Bohunk right up to maternity, leaving the car for a bit. Expecting us, the nurse took Mama to a room and told me to rush downstairs, sign an admitting form without taking time to fill it out and come right back.
Excited to welcome our next child and always one to obey orders, I did exactly as I was told. When I returned, Becky was already in the delivery room. I barely got my gown on when the heir apparent, Daniel Steven Fernlund, appeared. I looked at my watch and saw it wasn’t even 6 a.m. Labor and delivery of the other three took many hours.
After seeing that Mama and the heir apparent were settled in, I drove home to relieve Grandma and make all the phone calls a proud daddy makes when a baby appears. The girls were still asleep. After they had crawled out of bed and heard the news of a baby brother, we headed to Perkins on Lyndale for breakfast with the four grandparents.
I must have picked up the newspaper then but had no time to slog through it that morning. I thought it would be quite the heirloom, marking the birth of the first Fernlund boy in 26 years. Finding it almost 45 years later proves that.
Above the fold, as newsies say, the story on the front page is classic Minnesota. Three photos and the headline said simply 100 Degrees. Three pictures, black and white back then, showed three people coping with the heat. One was Elicea Nelson under the fountain at Martin Luther King Park. One of postal carrier Cara Lineham, fanning herself with flyers as she delivered her route. One is an unnamed teen jumping off a bridge into Lake of the Isles.
Iran released hostage Richard Queen for medical reasons. Another headline read, “Tax cut may not aid purchasing power.” Higher social security taxes and inflation would eat up most, if not all, of the expected tax cuts.
The B section, “Neighbors,” featured the City of Warroad and news about religion and churches.
The C section covered the turmoil in Central America, business news, two pages of the latest stock prices, investment funds, and grain and meat futures.
The D section, “Sports.” The Twins beat Seattle 6-3, and Rick Sofield, a Twins outfielder, hit an inside-the-park home run.
The two-part S section, “shelter,” has news about housing and 14 pages of want ads where you could find an apartment, a used car, or a family pet.
The last couple of pages were dedicated to movies and a listing of show times for Twin Cities theaters: “Best Picture of the Year, ‘Brubaker’” with Robert Redford and “The Empire Strikes Back” with Mark Hamill. The best of the year is long forgotten, but Star Wars lives on.
Finding things like this old newspaper is a fun part of death cleaning. However, it saddens me to realize that the newspapers that once bound us together are shadows of their former selves today.
