40 Things Minnesotans Get Emotional About

1. Being more than a flyover state

2. Happy hours

3. Parking

4. New foods at the Minnesota State Fair

5. Potholes

6. Condo construction in Dinkytown

7. Crop reports

8. Camp Snoopy

9. Pedal Pubs (love or hate)

10. Bars (the edible kind)

11. Josh Hartnett’s unibrow

12. Our hip-hop scene

13. Dan Wilson’s songwriting

14. Still voting for Walter Mondale

15. The Quadriga

16. Topping lutefisk with cream gravy (instead of using melted butter like a godless Norwegian)

17. Wild rice

18. “Up north”

19. When “up north” is actually west, east, or south

20. Swimmer’s itch

21. Curling

22. ’87/’91 Twins

23. The North Stars logo

24. Being reduced to stereotypes

25. Anything with the word “Fargo” in it

26. The Mighty Ducks

27. The Dayton’s auditorium Christmas show, back when it was different every year

28. DQs being shuttered for the winter

29. Coming around the corner on Highway 169 and spotting the Green Giant

30. Slam poetry

31. Ice dams

32. Asian Carp

33. The actual location of Lake Wobegon

34. Getting circled by Bert

35. The final Holidazzle

36. How much like your dad the mayor is

37. Minneapolis vs. St. Paul farmers’ markets and their rules about how far away the food can come in from

38. Michele Bachmann

39. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

40. The weather, every goddamn day