Moleskin 5.2: Rivers

  My first home was Owatonna, Minnesota, a town built on the banks of the Straight River, Straight, or Owatonna, being the name of a Dakota princess who was first healed by mineral springs on a tributary, Maple Creek. I lived there as an infant and remember nothing of it. My second home was in Billings, Montana, however many blocks away from the Yellowstone River: I was a toddler here, and I do not recall anything about my toddler years. Third was Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the mighty Mississippi courses through; we lived in a trailer park just east of the Miss, but my memories are only third party suggestions: I am told I first learned my address here, and being told this enough afterwards I still remember it. Fourth was Maddock, North Dakota, with no rivers of its own but the Big Coulee two miles west and the Sheyenne five miles south. I remember Maddock —our house anyway —but not the rivers. Fifth was New Hope, Minnesota, four miles west again of the Mississippi, still in the days before I had ever heard of Huck Finn.