Zenith City: Stories from Duluth

Introduction

a writer’s memory is his bank, his repository of narratives that he honestly endeavors to resurrect when writing. Regardless of others ’ perceptions and recollections, these remain his truth. While not blessed with total recall, I remember many instances from toddlerhood, like my second birthday, when Dad gave me a baseball glove and delighted in rolling a ball over the living room carpet, urging me to catch it and cheering when the ball bumped the glove. I used to amaze adults in the family by accurately recounting my second Christmas, when I was awakened by bright lights from a neighbor who came to film me opening gifts. I received a fancy pedalpowered car and many other toys, but I was more delighted by a purple balloon and the empty boxes that had contained my presents. I also possess clear images from the winter day before I turned three, when I rolled down the icy front steps of our duplex on Regent Street. Clad in a maroon snowsuit, I received a deep gash on the bridge of my nose; a faint scar remains visible to this day. Then when I was not yet four, baby brother David suffered a convulsion and Mother sent me downstairs to summon Norma Ranta, an LPN. Mrs. Ranta hurried to our upstairs half of the duplex and, while I watched, helped Mother immerse David in lukewarm water until Dr. Buckley arrived and had David taken to the hospital. My father took me across the street where I spent several days in a yellow two-story house with Aunt Bert and Uncle Charlie Peterson until David’s crisis passed. Twenty-five or so years later, their son, my cousin Chuck, would be a featured reed player for the band on the Tennessee Ernie Ford television program. I hung out in Uncle Charlie’s workshop, which was redolent of fresh-shaved wood that he fashioned into children’s toys to be sold ix introduction x | Introduction each Christmas season. I played with Peggy Peterson, the family bulldog. In later years, Mom and Dad had forgotten that I spent those days with Uncle Charlie and Aunt Bert, who tried one evening to get me to chew an aspirin tablet that she had crushed to stifle the onset of a fever, fearing I might convulse like David. When I refused, Aunt Bert, rather than waste an aspirin, chewed it down herself. Aunt Bert’s meatloaf wasn’t nearly as good as Mother’s or Grandma’s, and my aunt had no ketchup to pour on it either. Despite my parents’ doubts, these incidents are not only true but vividly so. And if they had not happened, how could I be remembering them? i was born at St. Luke’s Hospital in Duluth, Minnesota, on the morning of May , , despite the fervent wish of my parents, Ramona and Michael Fedo, that I arrive a day later on June  and thereby share the birth date of my father, Michael Anton Fedo. My parents named me Michael Warren Fedo, hoping that with a different middle name I wouldn’t be tagged with the moniker Junior. I was called Junior anyway, but not until twenty-three years later when Dad and I both taught at the same time at Denfeld High School. In order to distinguish us, Dad was Fedo Senior and I was Junior, which may have factored into my resignation two years later. No one called Junior exudes gravitas to teens, and I deemed it in my best interest to move on. My naming was a foretokening of minor confoundings to come, but my parents didn’t know that then, nor did I, being only a few hours removed from the womb. Over the years I’ve wondered if because I’ve been alternately called Mickey, Mike, and Michael, without ever totally settling on one, I’ve struggled, in contemporary parlance, to find myself. Life was a blasé flounder through post–high school years, seeking social diversions instead of devoting time to studying for college classes. An adviser at the University of Minnesota–Duluth insisted I had drifted too long; if I didn’t declare a major, I would be denied continued enrollment. I settled on speech only because I had thus far Introduction | xi earned B grades in those classes without putting forth much effort. A career in teaching was never envisioned, but that’s...