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Doctor Archie Graham played one inning, in one game, in 1905 as an
outfielder for the New York Giants. He is famous today because a writer
named W.P. Kinsella wrote an adult fairy tale titled Shoeless Joe,
which was later turned into a block buster movie called Field of
Dreams. Archie Graham never played ball with Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of
the hapless guys involved in throwing the 1919 World Series. But the fairy
tale story puts together
baseball players who needed a second shot at their dreams. The Kinsella
character builds a baseball field in Iowa, and the ball players gather as
people come to see the game. Building the "field of dreams" was the whole
point of the story.
In reality Archie Graham left baseball after his one inning in 1905. Growing
up in a well to do aristocratic southern family Archie went to John Hopkins
Medical School, and could have practiced at the best hospitals in the United
States. But that is not what he did. While visiting colleagues at the Mayo
Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Doc Graham bought a train ticket and asked
to go the farthest corner at the end of the train line. He ended up in a
frontier mining town on the Mesabi Iron Range in the northeast quadrant of
Minnesota.
Chisholm, Minnesota has been a small town forever, ranging in population
research for his book, he came to know the tall lanky ex-ball player turned
medic, who had been dead since 1965, by talking to dozens of the townspeople
who knew him. When asked why he moved to a backwater like Chisholm, Kinsella
invented Graham's response, but the locals who knew Doc said it would have
been something he said: "It's my favorite place in the whole world. Once the
land touches you, the wind never blows so cold again. You feel the land like
it was your child. When that happens to you, you can't be bought."
For over 50 years no one ever bought Doc Graham. He became a beloved and
respected school doctor who wore a black rain coat, always carried an
umbrella and gave my father his first pair of glasses during the Great
Depression. Without fanfare, he often helped struggling families and never
asked for a fee. Even today, the aging population of this former mining
boom town remembers him with respect and smiles. They also say that back in
the Great Depression, Doc Graham was one of dozens of townspeople who
pitched in to help one another through the greatest economic catastrophe of
the 20th century.
Summers in this remote corner of Minnesota vary from finger crimping cold to
downright Mississippi hot. The locals jokingly refer to the mosquito as the
Minnesota state bird. White boulders left over from the glacier that rumbled
through here 10,000 years ago litter the landscape, and eagles, wolves and
black bears live here in significant numbers.
The Norman Rockwell setting in Chisholm has changed a bit since the days Doc
Graham practiced medicine. Heavily Democratic, the DFL (Democratic Farmer
Labor Party) remains in power, while other areas of the state more often
vote Republican.
Mention Republicans or conservatives and you get, "but they are not for the
working man like the Democrats." Even Governor Jesse Ventura is resented
because he beat Democrat Skip Humphrey, son of Minnesota icon Hubert
Humphrey.
These good and basically conservative people are convinced the R behind a
candidates name stands for "rich republican." Despite the high taxes,
gargantuan growth of government, and environmental regs which often keep
them out of their own woods and lakes, the mind-set continues.
No amount of Democratic spending ever did anything for the Mesabi, except to
increase the welfare rolls. Republicans have not been elected to Congress
great-grandchildren of the people who lived through it act like it happened
yesterday. Like some horrific ethnic cleansing, whose legacy goes on for
generations, the Great Depression defines the people and politics of the
region. The Republicans and Hoover got blamed for what happened. FDR got
credit for creating make work like the WPA, CCC, and of course social
security.
But change could be coming to Chisholm and the Mesabi. Young people,
telecommuters, and Northwest Airlines are moving in. Northwest created a
reservations center in this small town, and is so impressed with the work
ethic and level of education here, that they are closing centers elsewhere.
On the outskirts of town, young couples with bicycle helmeted children ride
or walk around Longear Lake. Large new homes are being built and young
families are taking advantage of the bargain prices. And as though they had
discovered a secret, corporate warriors are quietly setting up shop.
It took the South 30 years to go from Democratic stronghold to home of Newt
Gingrich, Bob Barr, Fred Thompson, Paul Coverdel, Trent Lott, and Jeb Bush.
The South forgave the Republicans for the Civil War. Maybe someday the folks
in northern Minnesota will forgive them for Hoover and the Great Depression.
People like my folks and Doc Graham, who survived economic hard times, wars,
social upheaval, and the most severe handicaps of nature, have somehow
maintained the capacity to triumph over adversity. The optimism that created
"fields of dreams" still exists in fly over country.
Diane Alden is a research
analyst, writer, historian and political economist. She writes a column for
NewsMax.com, Etherzone, Enterstageright, American Partisan, KeepAndBearArms.com
and many other online publications. She also does occasional radio commentaries
for Georgia Radio Inc. Reach her at wulfric8@yahoo.com. |
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