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Minneapolis Park Memory: More Folwell Football

Posted February 4, 2012
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In September of ’63 dad dropped off Mike Boe and myself at Folwell for Pee Wee football.  We were coached by Bob Shogren a corpulent but athletic looking guy who showed up at our practices in a big yellow cab. Word was that Bob had signed with the Cowboys, but had a knee problem that ended his career. Bob seemed to know what he was doing, and taught us about ‘dives’, ‘cross-bucks’, ‘sweeps’, and ‘reverses.’ We learned the idiosyncrasies of the ‘safety’ and the ‘on-side’ kick.

Saturday morning, 45 minutes before kickoff we would assemble in the Folwell pavilion, a strange salmon-colored stucco structure built into a hillside in the middle of the park for the weigh in. Pee Wees could weigh no more than 100 lbs without equipment.  A couple of the guys, had a heck of a time making weight.

We then slipped into our gear, a helmet, jersey, and shoulder pads. Football pants were optional, and if they did appear they were the tan canvas ones right out of Norman Rockwell.

This left the game, which consisted of 4 seven-minute quarters, played on a hard pan field marked with powdered lime or pea gravel.  We played with a yellow Penn Rubber Co. black striped football, which I never saw any where else.

Two high school-age refs and a volunteer chain gain kept things in order as the assembled parents on the sideline cheered us on and we all enjoyed what at that age was a simple and nonviolent game.

Jim Krave

Thanks for the memory, Jim.

Yard and Garden Show: Trees in Minneapolis

Posted February 3, 2012
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I’ll be the entertainment on the Yard and Garden Show, Saturday, February 4 at noon on WCCO radio, 830 AM. I’ll talk about how the Minneapolis park board became responsible for all the street trees in the city. Did you know that most of Minneapolis south and west of the Mississippi was once open prairie? Then where did all these trees come from? The park board planted most of the trees along our streets—and still owns them. But did you know that’s also one reason the Minneapolis park board has its own police force? Of course, Charles Loring deserves most of the credit; his love of trees was well-known.

Portius Deming, writing in the park board’s 1916 annual report, described a major event that year that so logically connected Loring and trees:

It was a splendid idea to convert the conventional “Arbor Day” into “Charles M. Loring Day,” and it is to the credit of Minneapolis that this suggestion met with instant and universal approval.

“Loring Elms” were planted and dedicated to Loring by children at 78 public schools in the city that day and the Mayor planted a “Loring Elm” in Loring Park. Loring was in his 80s at the time and was still at his winter home in Riverside, California, but his papers at the Minnesota Historical Society include many telegrams he received from well-wishers that day.

Learn more at noon Saturday. Perhaps I’ll recap here afterward.

David C. Smith