Remembering Crookston: A Minnesota Memoir

“I jumped out and waved Russ to the edge of the garbage pit when I saw them coming, hundreds of them, RATS! Yellow eyes blazing . . . hungry mouths cheeping . . . bodies rippling like a brown furry carpet . . . and heading in our direction!”

Growing up during the Great Depression and World War II years in the small, northern Minnesota town of Crookston challenged “Charlie” with a series of shocking experiences and exciting adventures. Many of them took place on the Red Lake River, where he fished, swam, ice skated, and witnessed one of his closest young friends drown. Others took place where he had his first dance and met his first love. Still others occurred at jobs like the meat market, where he had his first encounter with rats! How Charlie survived with body and soul intact provided the content for Remembering Crookston: A Minnesota Memoir.