Leaving Rollingstone. Kevin Fenton

      © 2013 by Kevin Fenton. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, write to the Minnesota Historical Society Press, 345 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul, MN 55102–1906.

      Page 178, excerpt from “Funeral Music” by Geoffrey Hill, from New and Collected Poems, 1952–1992. Copyright 1994 by Geoffrey Hill. Used with permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

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      Manufactured in the United States of America

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      ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984.

      International Standard Book Number

      ISBN: 978-0-87351-913-7 (cloth)

      ISBN: 978-0-87351-915-1 (e-book)

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Fenton, Kevin, 1959–

      Leaving Rollingstone : a memoir / Kevin Fenton.

      pages cm

      Summary: “Leaving Rollingstone is the story of how a Twin Cities advertising writer and novelist reclaimed the enduring values and surprising vitality of his small-town Minnesota boyhood”—Provided by publisher.

      ISBN 978-0-87351-913-7 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-87351-915-1 (ebook)

      1. Fenton, Kevin, 1959—Childhood and youth 2. Copy writers—Minnesota—Biography. 3. Authors, American—21st century—Biography. 4. Rollingstone (Minn.) I. Title.

      PS3606.E5843Z46 2013

      813’.6—dc23

      [B]

      2013016939

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      To John Kendrick, who was a friend since I knew what a friend was

      To the memory of Bill Schuth, who lived the values I try to describe here

      And, always, to Ellen

      THE GOLDEN AGE

      I tend to reduce my childhood to a beatles movie—an edited, accelerated, saturated, and scripted happiness.

      Before dawn, late November, almost winter, a kitchen in a farmhouse on a ridge above Rollingstone, Minnesota, a village in the southeastern part of the state, in country that looks more like New England than anything in the Midwest.

      I am still sleepy, so more of the world seeps in. The windows in the kitchen look out toward the machine shed, yet I can’t see anything but the reflection of the halo-shaped kitchen light, the blue flame of our gas stove, the tutti-frutti-speckled linoleum, and my family, standing in bathrobes. We all stand on the floor vents, aligning ourselves along the wall like the saints in church. If I were to place my hand on the glass, I would feel its chill. But I’m standing away from it, the metal floor vents embossing my bare feet, the air from the vent heating my shins and tickling my pajama bottoms. My mom walks from person to person and refills our cocoa. Then she makes another trip and gives us toast. It looks as if she is serving us communion. When I dip the toast, the margarine floats and glows on top of the cocoa. I eat the triangle of cocoa-soaked toast in one bite.

      We leave our mugs in the sink, sprint upstairs, and tug on jeans and flannels. We step into boots in the entryway; we run out the door; the chill air surprises our lungs and smoothes our skin. We hurry, almost running, goofing around in the way that we have learned from Beatles movies, yelling, mock-threatening. The yard light illuminates the graveled driveway and grassy strip in front of the barn. We pass the shed, then the chicken coop. My brother Dennis turns right, into the barn. Dad follows behind us. He limps. Hip replacements have shortened one leg, but the latest operation appears to be taking. He is careful. At this time of year in southern Minnesota, the ground can ice over.

      Dad is careful; we’re not. Dawn tints the sky and reveals the horizon. We jog into the barnyard, stepping in shit, following the strangely thin cow trails, darting into the nibbled land, past the leafless birch trees, wiry raspberry brambles, and dry milkweeds. We sprint. We locate the cows and urge them toward the barn. Now, we slow because the cows, not having seen Beatles films, take their time. There are fewer than thirty of them, so we know their grandmotherly names: Abigail, Bessie. Because they have names, we love them a little too much. When the cows are in their stalls, the girls and I walk up to the house. Dennis and Dad stay behind to milk them. We stop at the chicken coop—a cave of straw and poop, lit by bare bulbs, toothy with beaks and claws. We collect the eggs.

      The girls put on records while we get ready for school. The candy-colored, fragile 45s spin like a county fair ride; the needle skates and scratches above them. Herman’s Hermits’ “No Milk Today.” Uncool but surprisingly beautiful. The Ohio Express’s “Yummy Yummy Yummy.” Uncool but surprisingly fun. Dennis runs in after finishing the milking and quickly gets ready. He washes and then changes from his farmer clothes into penny loafers, blue jeans, and an untucked oxford shirt. He Brylcreems his hair and sticks the comb in his pocket. He looks like one of the Beach Boys.

      My oldest sister, Maureen, and my mom have left for Winona, where Mom works in the hospital and Maureen attends college. Everyone else is ready. I follow them out to the pickup. Because there is only a front seat, we either cram together or I hop into the open back. Memory sputters here, so I imagine what happens next. Dennis says something like, “We really wanted you to sit in the front seat with us … but …” And here Dennis parodies a customs agent who has noticed a difficulty he wishes he could dismiss but knows he must address. He winces; he visibly cogitates.

      He finally speaks again. “It seems that, well … it just seems that you … might not be … cool enough.”

      Colleen says, “Oh, Dennis, stop being so mean.” But even she knows that his threat is about as mean as the crust on an apple pie.

      “Okay, this time, you’re in. But try to get a lot cooler by tomorrow morning.” We cram into the front seat and head into town. As we descend the hill and approach the zag we call Devil’s Curve, Dennis accelerates, to scare the girls. They scream as they look out over the tree-interrupted drop that separates them from the Speltzes’ pasture. There is no glass in the window in the back of the pickup. Cold air swirls behind our heads; heated air blasts toward us. We could stick some cardboard in there, but that wouldn’t be cool, either.

      After school, Colleen and Sheila dance in the living room to Freddy Cannon, who sings the theme to the teenybopper show Where the Action Is. The girls Frug and Twist and Pony to a voice—tinny, manic—that sounds like a transistor radio. He wants to take them where the action is, on the Sunset Strip. Later in the show, young men in Revolutionary War costumes—wigs, tri-cornered hats—play guitars and keyboards on the beach.

      At night, Dennis and the girls ricochet knock-knock jokes from their beds, between our room and theirs.

      “Knock knock.”

      “Who’s there?”

      “Pecan.”

      “Pecan