How to Be Golden by Paula Bernstein

Author:Paula Bernstein [Bernstein, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Press
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

Back in St. Olaf…

Though St. Olaf isn’t a real town in Minnesota, Rose brings her fictional hometown to life with her colorful and mostly unbelievable anecdotes. Remember this is the town where Rose was voted “most likely to get stuck in a tuba” in high school and was also the valedictorian!

St. Olaf’s biggest claim to fame (aside from the low IQ of its citizens) is its giant black hole, where townspeople could often be found on weekends “just standing around looking at it.” This naturally prompts Dorothy to refer to St. Olaf sarcastically as the real “entertainment capital of the world.” Another attraction that sets St. Olaf apart is Mt. Losenbauden, similar to Mount Rushmore, except that it features only the faces of losing presidential candidates. St. Olaf’s famous trysting spot is called Mt. Pushover.

St. Olaf holidays and festivals include Hay Day (when the townsfolk celebrate hay), the Festival of the Dancing Sturgeons, the Day of the Wheat, and, of course, the Butter Queen competition.

Usually, Rose offers her stories as a lesson or to make a helpful point, but often they are completely unrelated to what the girls are talking about. As the series goes on, her anecdotes become more absurd, though they usually head in unexpected directions. There’s the story about Ernest T. Minkie, St. Olaf’s librarian who was also the town’s only dentist. “Everybody hated Minkie; he seemed to take great pleasure in giving other people pain. They hated him so much that nobody ever went to the dentist or the library.”

Her vivid—and offbeat—reminiscences about growing up in St. Olaf sometimes sounded more like the “plot” of a Fellini film. “When I think of my father, I always picture him pulling a giant tuna up Main Street. It wasn’t a real tuna; it was made of chrysanthemums!” Then there was her biology teacher, Mrs. Gunderson, who taught students that the human body was made up of 80 percent Ovaltine. “During a course on World War I, she told us mustard gas was something you got from eating too many hot dogs,” Rose recalls. “That’s why, to this day in St. Olaf, everyone celebrates the Fourth of July with a thin omelet on a bun.”

Rose likes to make Scandinavian desserts such as Genügenflürgen cake, which inevitably, leads to humorous interactions like the following:

Rose: It’s an ancient recipe, but I Americanized it.

Dorothy: So one might say you brought “Genügenflürgen” into the ’80s?

Rose: Yes, but I’m not one to blow my own Genügenflürgen.

Sophia: I can’t even reach mine!

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.