Leaky Buckets

  Zippy and Sam on a High Line adventure, August 2021 One of my favorite photos was taken on the edge of the Missouri Breaks. It is a gloomy August day in 2020 and Sam is standing on the rim with the dogs, looking stoically out at the lazy river below. On one side of the picture is a lonely ranch, perched dramatically above the badlands. On the other is an unobtrusive purple car, rakishly parked on the side of the gravel, windows down, Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark playing on the radio.  I flash to numerous other moments, as Sam and I exit the Hell Creek Bar, or the Helmville Rodeo, or the Jackson Hot Springs and walk through the parking lot. We walk past a line of shiny Silverados and brooding Rams, lifted Jeeps and knobby-tired Tundras with all the necessary accessories for surviving the zombie apocalypse and finally come to our little 2008 Honda Fit. I take so much pride in driving such an insignificant little car in a country where people are judged by what they driv...

  US Bank Stadium, Home of the Vikings I root for two football teams; the Minnesota Vikings and whoever is playing the Green Bay Packers. Last night as I watched with delight as the cheeseheads got bowled over for the seventh time this season, I started pondering the allegiances to various teams. The invisible borders that determine who to root for, who to root against, and how those decisions are made by happenstance but are then set in stone for a lifetime.  My dad grew up in Minnesota and as far as I can tell, that is why I became a Vikings fan. Logically, it didn’t make sense to root for a team halfway across the country that hasn’t been to a Super Bowl since 1979 and always finds a way to choke away some of the greatest chances in football history. But since the age of seven, my earliest memory of listening to the Vikings beat the Cowboys on the AM radio, I have been a die hard supporter. As a grown man, I have cried three times directly due to Vikings games… twice in ang...