Alexandria, Minnesota

 

Rather than beginning this post with an exaltation of all the tributes to Sinclair Lewis in Sauk Centre, his hometown, I must first report on the theft of my sleeping bag, the second time such a travesty has befallen me in the past two years.  The first was outside a supermarket on the outskirts of Washington D. C. as I was winding up a trip, so it was no dire disaster.  

This time, however, I wasn’t so fortunate.  It happened at a MacDonalds in the small town of Morris on a Sunday when no stores were open that might have had a replacement.  The best I could come up with was a fleece blanket at a Dollar Store.  The nearest larger town was Alexandria, forty-five miles away, where I could resort to a hotel if I couldn’t find a sleeping bag for the night. It would be a hard push into a stiff headwind to make it by dark.  With the temperature dropping to forty at night I doubt the fleece blanket and all my clothes would suffice.

Fifteen miles before Alexandria I took a break at a convenience store in the tiny town of Kensington.  An older guy on a tricycle arrived just as I did.  He had a bundle of advertisements on the back of his bike that he was delivering about town.  I asked if Alexandria might have a Walmart where I could replace my sleeping bag, telling him mine had just been stolen a few hours ago.  He said it did, but he had an extra I could have.  That was too good to be true.  He said he lived nearby so we went straight there.

He didn’t have to go into the house to find it, as it was on the shelf in his garage. It was in a bright red stuff sack with a Marlboro insignia which I instantly recognized as an item from the long-gone Marlboro catalogue full of useful, well-made gear that one could acquire with the UPC code torn from the cigarette packs, which I knew all too well.  I was never a smoker, but I collected hundreds of discarded packs along the road for a period of several years, one of the best things I ever scavenged.  I redeemed them for jackets and shorts and watches and many other items.  

It was a sad, sad  day when Congress banned cigarette companies from giving smokers the incentive to smoke more with these coupons.  Camel and Newport and Virginia Slims and Benson and Hedges and all of the brands competed with one another to have the most enticing stuff. It was a much anticipated day each year when Marlboro released its new catalogue.  Newport for a while gave out movie passes for a certain number of packs.  The value of most coupons was about twenty-five cents, so it was like stopping to pick up a quarter.  A friend and I would bike around the city on Sunday mornings and harvest forty or more. 

It’s been a couple decades since they were banned, so this sleeping bag was a relic.  We unrolled it to make sure it wasn’t bug-infested.  It looked brand new and had a heavy-duty zipper and clips to synch it down, not cheap at all.  It had a fleece liner, probably not as warm as the down bag that had been stolen, but with the Dollar Store blanket it could be warm enough.  If not, I’d just have to wear some clothes.   My good fortune in coming upon this sleeping bag didn’t wholly blunt the indignity of being robbed, but it helped.  Henceforth I will have to better secure my tent and sleeping bag on the back of my bike so thieves can’t so easily detach them.  It is certainly disheartening though  that such thievery could happen even in small town America.

Anyway, great thanks to Greg, who works as a lift-operator for the nearby ski resort of Andes Tower Hills.  His ski season can start as early as Halloween if a cold spell hits, though usually not until well into November.  His resort has snow-making capabilities, so when sub-freezing temperatures come around he can be called to work any time.  He goes to work with a bundle of clothes, not knowing how many layers he might need. 

The down sleeping bag I had stolen hadn’t been warm enough the night before, as I needed to put on my sweater during the night as I slept, as the temperature nudged below forty.  I camped in a narrow band between two corn fields.  As I returned to the road,  a pickup truck turned onto the small path between the fields.  I expected a reprimand or a stern query from the burly driver, but he shockingly greeted me most cordially, saying his son had been out bow hunting in the morning and had seen my tent.  He hoped he hadn’t disturbed me.  I assured him he hadn’t and asked if his son had had any luck as I’d noticed quite a few ears of corn nibbled on.  He acknowledged the deer were a menace and was sorry his son hadn’t seen any.  It was a pleasant bookend to a day that had a calamitous middle.

I had camped a few miles past Glenwood, where I’d visited my second Carnegie of the day.  Carnegie was so synonymous with libraries in this region, that his name over the entry was in larger letters than the “Glenwood Public Library” above it. 

The Sauk Centre Carnegie twenty-five miles before it was bereft of any lettering on the building or acknowledgement of Carnegie, letting its identify be known by a sign out front calling it the Bryant Library.  A statue of Sinclair Lewis and a plaque relating the significance of his book “Main Street” also graced its grounds.  Lewis didn’t grow up with the library, as he entered Yale in 1903, the year it was constructed.  A plaque on the library quotes him as saying that growing up reading was his “greatest adventure.” 

Lewis had the impetus to succeed as his father was the town physician and he was another example of the third-born son syndrome, striving to outdo his older brothers.  His major breakthrough didn’t come until 1920 when he was thirty-four with the publication of “Main Street” loosely based on his home town.  It was the best-selling book of the time and made him a wealthy man.  Its less than flattering portrayal of his home town, named Gopher Prairie in the book, didn’t initially sit well with Sauk Centre.  The local newspaper went six months before it acknowledged it.  In time though Sauk Centre fully embraced him.  He followed up “Main Street” with five best selling novels almost one per year and in 1930 became the first American awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

There is no indication that he was a cyclist, though he might have been, as he was a great admirer of the ardent cyclist H. G. Wells, so much so that he named his son Wells.  H. L. Mencken referred to Lewis as “the red-haired tornado from the Minnesota woods.”

The intersection in the middle of town is Sinclair Lewis Avenue and Original Main Street, not merely Main Street.  In 1994 the Main Street was placed on the National Register of 
Historic Places.  Sinclair Lewis Avenue leads a mile east to the cemetery where Lewis is buried.  He died in Rome in 1951 at the age of sixty-four succumbing to alcohol.  His ashes were brought to the family plot where they reside between his mother and father.  I didn’t have to search hard to find his modest marker, as a plaque at the entry to the cemetery indicated it could be found “three rows in, eight monuments to the left.”

Two murals in town  honor him and quotes from “Main Street” adorn benches. 

The campground on the town lake is named for him. 

The home he grew up in can be visited.  Unfortunately I can’t report on it, nor the museum in the library or how the library honored him, as they closed at noon on Saturday, shortly before I pulled into town following a magnificent bike path for over twenty miles.

I followed up my two Carnegies on Saturday with two more on Sunday, neither of which continue to serve as libraries.  The Carnegie in Morris is now the Stevens County Historical Society and Museum.  It was more emphatic than Glenwood with its acknowledgment of Carnegie, letting his name suffice as to the identity of the building.

The Carnegie in Alexandria now is residence to several businesses and is inscribed with “Carnegie Building” over its entry.