The Robbinsdale Connection

Born in Robbinsdale in 1955, I lived there, Inver Grove Heights and then Elk River, graduating from Elk River High School. I consider Elk River my hometown, the answer to 'where did you grow up' questions. During high school I worked at George's Super Valu in town, being a bag-boy, and also working the dairy department and produce department. One particular evening I was working the front with another bag boy, Mike Karstens, and a couple of cashiers. There was a guy that came in the store who I had never seen before. He had long hair and wore a jean jacket that was customized with drawings and words of which I cannot remember, other than it was all done charmingly with a Bic pen. I cracked a couple jokes with Mike about 'Jeansjacket' as we went back and forth with grocery bins to the rollers. Our shift came to a close at 10:00pm and as I went to the back of the store where our lockers were to hang up the smocks and stuff, Mike was 'hangin' with me for some reason, which I thought was odd at the moment. I would find out soon enough why. We weren't 'friends' per se and his actions were unusual. As we left the safe confines of the store, Mike makes a beeline for his bicycle that is chained up to a fence. I made my u-turn to the employee parking lot behind the building. Waiting for me were three guys.

Jeansjacket had gotten a couple of buddies to help beat me up. So I take a few more steps and they surround me. Jeansjacket puts me up against the brick wall with one hand, holds me there. He says to his buddies "What should we do with him?" Geez. I coulda answered that. I knew what was going on. He was at least considerate enough to take my glasses off and hand them to the little guy, which I figured was bad, as the other guy was a much larger native dude.

Then for some inexplicable reason, Jeansjacket asks me "Where are you from?"

Now, I'm a fairly quick thinker, but I needed an extra second to think about this. Okay. Let's see. I have never seen him before. We're in downtown Elk River. Most of the employees at the grocery store are going to be from Elk River. I work there, so chances are I'm from Elk River. I figure that there is no point in saying I'm from Elk River as that's probably enough reason to beat me up as he's not from Elk River. Where am I from? Where am I from?

"Robbinsdale" I respond.

He's stupefied. He says, "You're from Robbsindale?! I'm from Robbinsdale!" Now, I'm stupefied.

I recover quickly to say something like "Really? That's cool." But I'm not out of the woods yet. I say "Well, we moved from there a while back."

He says "That's cool. Who do you know there?"

Oh man... I was five when we moved 'a while back.' There was one name I remember, as our family had visited their family at their cabin up north on vacation. It was my only chance. "Baiers" I say.

"You know Baiers?"

"Yeah! Their house was kitty corner to ours." I could be lying, I have no idea.

"Which Baiers do you know?"

Oh my god. Think. Think. Think. "Uh. Kathy" The only name I could remember.

"You know Kathy Baier?" and at this point Jeansjacket is holding his hands out in front of him like he's delivering a couple of grocery bags.

"Yeah, that's her" I said. I have no idea. I hope I'm not lying.

Next thing you know, I've got my glasses back, we're shaking hands and we're all friends. Friends that I never saw again.

A couple days later, back at work, Mike asks what happened. I tell him the truth, but not all of it. "Yeah, it was cool. We talked for a while and shook hands. We're cool."

"Really? I thought they were going to beat you up."

"I figured you knew that. What happened to you?"

"They let the air out of my tires." Lucky for Mike that's all he got, because he probably wasn't from Robbinsdale.

The addendum to the story is that Jim 'Jeansjacket' Anderson died one month later in a single car rollover accident somewhere near Elk River. And to this day, I would like to thank Kathy Baier for being my only  memory from Robbinsdale.