North Dakota Is A Very Small Place
By Mitch Berg
Backstory: In 21 years of living in the Twin Cities, I’ve met quite a number of fellow expat North Dakotans. Whereever they’re from, no matter what the age difference, it matters not – rarely can we talk for more than a minute without coming up with at least one common acquaintance or friend.
So I was on a date the other night. In and among the other conversation, my date mentioned “my sister’s husband is from North Dakota”.
ME: “Really? Where?”
SHE: “I don’t know. But his last name is [very common name in ND]
ME: “Really? What’s his first name?” [I ask, remembering that I knew a Todd [very common name in ND]]
SHE: “James”
ME: “Ah, Well, it could be…”
SHE: “But everyone calls him Todd”
I made her call her sister on the cell phone. Sure enough, it was the very same Todd [very common name in ND] that I used to walk to school with, thirty years ago. He lives in the Metro, runs a business, is apparently quite a guy.
It’s hard to explain to other people, sometimes…
March 6th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Yupp, I was at Municipul Arena where i drive Zamboni and a coupkle of guys wearing UND stuff come in so I introduced myself as a Grand Forks Forks native. One kept looking at me funny and asked where I worked in GF. We both worked for Pepsi at the same time as drivers in the late 70’s. The other knew of my brother, not well, but he knew who he was.