SEARCHING CHAPTER 7: A New Start
By Patrick Cabello Hansel
We can”'t say that Angel didn”'t know where to start this leg of his journey. He”'d been starting his whole life. Fits and starts. False starts. Start and stop, start and stop. Angel”'s problem was finishing. He”'d managed to graduate from Roosevelt””barely””and he vaguely remembered the platitudes the locally famous person of color had shared at the graduation ceremony: Believe in your dreams. Reach for the stars. Stay in touch. Good words, he thought, but he”'d spent the six months since then pretty much wandering through life, without a plan, That morning, in Mother Light”'s house, as he tenderly pulled on his jacket and bent over to tie his shoes, he spotted the webbed ornament in the window.
“That”'s a dream catcher, right?” he said to Ana, who was waiting at the door.
She smiled, nodded yes, then pointed to her eyes, to her heart, to her lips and then to Angel. He shook his head and wondered what manner of answer that was: was this beautiful young woman deaf? Or merely insane? “I wonder if it caught any of my dreams”, he muttered to himself.
Ana handed him his backpack, which felt heavier to his bruised shoulders.… Read the rest “SEARCHING CHAPTER 7: A New Start”
“Bring a shawl and get a baby” from a 1908-09 Baby Farm 3341 Nicollet Avenue
![“The babies [from the Baby Farm on Nicollet Avenue] are buried in unmarked graves at various locations throughout the cemetery.” This heart shaped grave marker is for Emma Bertta who died June 30th 1886, marker of a heart shaped cross and whose family did provide this marker.](https://alleynews.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/004.02-oct-09-tales-photoBabysMarker18861.jpg "004.02 oct 09 tales photoBabysMarker1886")
The babies from the Baby Farm on Nicollet Avenue are buried in unmarked graves
Between June 24, 1908 and September 6, 1909, 27 infants died at the same address–3341 Nicollet Avenue South. These babies (13 girls, 13 boys, and one whose gender was not recorded) were under the care of “Doctor” Hans Oftedal. As the quote marks suggest, Hans Oftedal was not a licensed physician; he was the proprietor of one of several “baby farms” operating in Minneapolis at the time.
Baby farms were essentially unlicensed boarding houses for infants whose parents were too poor to care for them. The parents surrendered their children to baby farm operators and paid a fee for the care that they believed their children would receive. In some cases, the parents intended to come back and reclaim their children, but in other cases they expected their children to be adopted by families who could provide for them. Adoption was unregulated at that time, and Minneapolis had the dubious distinction of being the baby-trafficking capitol of the Upper Midwest. The Minneapolis Tribune described the adoption trade in Minneapolis as one in which people could “Bring a shawl and get a baby.”
In October 1909, “Doctor” Oftedal shut down his baby farm.… Read the rest ““Bring a shawl and get a baby” from a 1908-09 Baby Farm 3341 Nicollet Avenue”
Frequent + Biker = Freiker Rhymes with Hiker
Freiker + Dero = More Hiking and Biking at Seward Montessor
Dero Bike Racks
By Kathy Kurdelmeier
Dero Bike Racks in the Seward neighborhood has paired up with Seward Montessori, a Minneapolis Public School, to make the school the most walked and biked to school in the city… maybe the state.
Dero Bike Racks has donated a Freiker/Dero ZAP system to the school, a system designed to encourage kids to bike and walk to school. Freiker (frequent + biker, rhymes with hiker) a non profit company out of Boulder, Colorado, pioneered the concept using RFID technology. Dero Bike Racks manufactures the ZAP unit. The system is the first to be used in a Minnesota school, one of a only dozen throughout the country.
Each registered student is given a RFID (radio frequency identification) tag. Each time the student walks or bikes to school they pass under the ZAP unit, which emits a beep and records their trip and mileage into the Freiker database.
That information will be used to provide incentives to individuals and classes that walk and bike the most. The school also hopes to incorporate the information into the classroom, teaching the students about their carbon footprint and the benefit of walking and biking to themselves as well as to the environment.… Read the rest “Frequent + Biker = Freiker Rhymes with Hiker”
