More Light Rail

Dale returned from Madeline yesterday. He returned his rental car at the airport and then took light rail to the Hiawatha and 46th Street stop which is where I picked him up. I only waited for about 10 minutes for his train to arrive.  It was a pleasant evening with a summery feel - perfect for sitting outside.  These photos were taken at around 8:15 p.m. I remember as far back as 1980 reading in the old Minneapolis Star about the possibility of light rail transit coming to Minneapolis.  I can't believe is took as long as it did to become a reality. Minneapolis once had an intricate trolley system that was the envy of the nation but I believe it was dismantled in the 1960s to make way for the freeway system. It's a shame that a new system had to be started from scratch when there was once such a functional network.

The Minneapolis Tribune from 38 Years Ago Today

I found this old edition of the Minneapolis Tribune from 38 years ago (today!) at an antique store near Stillwater. Pretty historic stuff, huh?! Our family got the Minneapolis Star which came out in the afternoon. The Tribune was the morning paper. Dad liked to read the news after work so we subscribed to the afternoon paper which, obviously, had slightly more current info. Hard to believe in this era of 24-hour news that the news was updated at only certain points of the day. I liked getting the Star because it ran the Peanuts comic strip. The Tribune did not. The Star and Tribune merged in the 1980s and adopted the slogan "Newspaper of the Twin Cities." The top photo is of the Star and Tribune building in downtown Minneapolis and, I'm guessing, from the 1960s.

The Minneapolis Tribune/The Minneapolis Star

Dale and I went to St. Paul today to visit the Minnesota Historical Society and see the 1968 exhibit. Although I was quite young in 1968 I do have memories that I can trace back to that year. The first national event that I have a memory of was the moon landing in 1969. Reprints of the December 24, 1968 edition of the Minneapolis Tribune were being handed out at the Historical Society to go along with the exhibit. When I was little, the morning paper was the Minneapolis Tribune and the evening edition of the paper was the Minneapolis Star. We always got the Minneapolis Star because Dad liked to read the paper when he got home from work in the afternoon. I remember the final edition of the Minneapolis Star in 1982 or 1983. Around this time the two papers merged to become the Star Tribune which we still subscribe to today. My friend Paul and his family lived up the street from our family when I was growing up and his family got the Tribune in the morning while ours got the Star in the afternoon. I used to love reading the Dear Abby advice column and the Peanuts comic strips that were featured in the Star. I was surprised to find out from Paul that the advice columnist in the Tribune was not Abby but Ann Landers and that the Tribune did not carry Peanuts. I couldn't imagine not being able to read about Charlie Brown and Snoopy! Oh well, Paul grew up to be a happy and productive member of society regardless. I especially loved reading the Variety section in the Star. That's were the comics, t.v. listings, Dear Abby, entertainment and special interest stories were.

The above photo is of the December 24, 1968 edition of the Minneapolis Tribune and was taken by me.