The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Psychology class, at the Saint Paul campus, ended its session. Two students remained. He opened the door for her. She wore a baggy, off-white dress shirt with a narrow, new-wave neck tie. She approached. As if gentlemen's rules, he opened the door wider. She stopped a few paces from the door.

Every Christmas when I was a child, much of my extended family would gather at my grandparents’ farm outside a small town in Illinois. My own family would usually arrive early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, and many other relatives who lived nearby would come out to the farm for dinner that night.

My grandparents had raised seven children, so there was always plenty of room for everybody at the farmhouse. My uncle Dick, who’d never married, still lived there and helped out around the farm. Dick was a bit of a drinker, and a big, jolly fellow.