(16) Notes from a {prole} writer in Minneapolis

2/21/26

The cold has gripped the 612. 11 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. After a momentary warmup, Mother Nature lets us know who is boss.

So much is happening in the news. The flow of life in Minneapolis keeps flowing. The lakes freeze, but the citizens keep making that money.

Everyday I see and talk to people shopping. Something funny happened yesterday when the older fellow ahead of me paid for his meager two sacks of groceries and the cash register said $68.00. He was speechless. The cashier was like, “It is what it is,”

He repeated, “68 dollars—“

The cashier, a demure kind of woman, laughed in a good-natured way.

He shook his head again, chuckled along and carried on with his bagging of goods, “68 dollars—.”

Only a few people at the top are making it harder for the rest of us. I remember the days when 5 bucks was a bag of groceries. We are picking up the slack for the indulgences of the depraved.

Reason number 2,228 why I don’t have children. Ha! Don’t take it the wrong way dear reader, some of us just aren’t made with the dominion gene; or the gene of nurturing a being of less capability. Besides, I think I kinda already did that part with my bro who was ten years younger.

I was jamming out to J. Cole’s new album today. That’s my bro’s music. J. Cole has a transcendent quality that I easily identify with. That millennial vibe. I get teary-eyed thinking about it. There is so much beauty that stems and blossoms from struggle that it makes it all worth it in the end. My bro and I have grown up struggling, but we have our own healthy mechanisms to cope just like Cole.

My bro lives in Chicago now. So, he and his fellow citizens have had to deal with the ice goon occupation longer than we have in Minneapolis. Demons follow. We struggle onward, trying to make some beauty and make sense of the struggle being wrought by the vices of the depraved. The cycle continues—

Hindsight being 20/20; it turns out, riding in the car in Des Moines, Iowa, jamming out to J. Cole with my bro was some of the best moments of my life.

Moments still catch me off guard nowadays.

I was working at the Jerry’s on Broadway a few days ago. A timid boy, must’ve been about 10 or 11, asks me how I’m doing and asks if I work there. I said no, I work for——, and told him I could help him find something if he just told me what he was looking for.

He struggled to get the word out, “Seaweed rolls.”

He had a stutter.

The exchange warmed my heart, as I too struggled with stuttering at his age. He was brave enough to talk to a big scary-looking NDN dude like me. Better than I would’ve done at that age. He struggled a bit more, and said his thanks.

I could definitely see a little of myself, my bro, & J. Cole in that little boy growing up in the big city. The cycle continues—