Author: Joe Pastoor

  • The Mortarboard, the Sheepskin, and the Dixie Cup

    Nothing was normal on the morning of Wednesday, November 5, at Stratford High School in Goose Creek, South Carolina. For one thing, there were no drugs in the school. If there were, the fourteen police officers plus one drug-sniffing dog should have found them when they swept into the school, guns drawn, and sent students…

  • Down Force

    The now ubiquitous spoiler—that horizontal fin typically perched on the trunks of sports cars—goes way back, back before the elevated brake lights that now decorate them on every third Honda you get behind on Lake Street. In the early days of Gran Turismo racing in Europe, about forty years ago, the spoiler was the solution…

  • St. Paul’s Lunch Lady

    I don’t know whether I was having a nightmare, but I recently woke up wondering what it takes to produce 48,000 meals a day. So I invited myself to the St. Paul Public Schools’ nutrition services headquarters to find out. The answer, supplied in the person of Director Jean Ronnei, is nerves of steel. District…

  • Meet the Meat Guys

    “Psst! How about a case of meat? Good stuff. Great price. C’mere and have a look.” It happened to Joe’s wife one day as she pumped gas on her lunch break. She and a friend followed the peddler to a van in the Amoco parking lot to have a look. It was tempting. The beef…

  • Innie or Outie?

    When visiting sculptor Joe Anton’s split-level rambler in Brooklyn Park, it might take a while for the subject to come around to art. Horsepower TV might be on, demonstrating the latest muscle-car trick modifications. You might need to help unload an awning from the bed of his Ranchero. Plaques in the rec room display his…

  • Toothsome Treat

    “Crisis” may be a strong word for the chocolate situation locally, but the situation is alarming. If you plan to say “I love you” with a box of chocolates on February 14th, options are dwindling. Dependable entry-level fare is still available at any of Fanny Farmer’s metro locations. And nowadays, we can’t turn around without…