From This Valley

By Pete Steiner

The third annual Steinies

My contribution to the “Best of” issue typically features categories not included elsewhere in the issue.

May I remind you of the unique rules? In each category, there was only one vote: that of yours truly. Yet even determining categories was challenging in another year dominated by COVID. With so much of what we access in a normal year shut down or restricted by COVID precautions and protocols, categories such as best coffee shop, best bartender, best concert venue – for me, at least, those things were now off the table.

Maybe the best restaurant carryout? Um, you go ahead and vote for that one. Best drive-thru? The lines always seemed so long, and I hate lines, so I’m not qualified in that category. Even my favorite category, best malt, couldn’t obtain an adequate sampling of candidates this year.

Still, I was able to cobble together enough categories, however quirky, to produce a column. As ever, the Steinies are virtual (yes, they were virtual well before COVID!). If you are a recipient, notice how I have cleverly outsourced my costs: You can cut the article out and highlight your name in your favorite color and tape it to your fridge, and there's your Steinie for all to see. Now, this year's winners:

Favorite Day of the Week: Used to be Friday, but during COVID it became Grocery Day. The day of the week I opted to take a risk rather than hire a personal shopper or have groceries delivered. I needed to do this to reassure myself that other humans actually still do exist outside of Zoom meetings. A Steinie for Grocery Day.

Favorite Superhero: Lots of candidates for this, although my grandson’s favorite from “Paw Patrol” did not make the cut. It came

STEINIES

down to my trash collector, my postal carrier, my favorite delivery driver, the nurse who gave me my first vaccine shot, and the winner: a Steinie to every cheery checkout person who rang me up on those grocery store visits. If I seemed too over-the-top personal to you, well, it’s just that you were the only real in-the-flesh human outside of my family that I could interact with.

Word of the Year: COVID, not to mention George Floyd and the Capitol Insurrection, gave prominence to so many words/ phrases we don’t often use: asymptomatic, shedding virus, new normal.

While I know most of us are longing for a “new normal” that doesn’t seem so full of dread, the Steinie, nevertheless goes to “exponential” – as in, spread of the virus, spread of fear, spread of misinformation.

Best Consequence of COVID: all the new sidewalk cafes. Give 'em each a Steinie.

Favorite Holiday: not really a holiday, but maybe should be, because we do need another threeday weekend: May 14, the day after the CDC lifted the mask mandate for the vaccinated. It was so exhilarating seeing faces and smiles again. Name it Unmasking Day.

Favorite binge-worthy series: Everyone has been exchanging lists of shows they watched while selfquarantining. The Steinie goes to “Schitt’s Creek.” Phenomenal cast of quirky characters, and you know this old radio guy loved how they got one of the “seven dirty words” past the FCC monitors.

Local writer: As Nick Healy has noted in his monthly magazine column, the Mankato area is blessed with more fine writers than a town our size might expect. Part of this is because of the efforts and encouragement of longtime Minnesota State University professor and now Steinie recipient Rick Robbins, who nurtured so many of those writers before he recently retired. An honorable mention here to Dawn Quigley, a Native American with local roots. Her moving poem about the 38 who were hanged here in 1862, “Blue Earth Banks,” was published in the prestigious Poetry magazine in March.

Last summer, during a COVID reprieve for outdoor dining, Jeanne and I ran into a dear reader who suggested I create a new Steinie category in honor of her nickname: the Noodle. I tried defining the category more fully: one who is open and gracious to all, who enthusiastically promotes connection and makes this a better place to live.

When I decided on the inaugural winner of the Noodle Steinie, my only qualm was, why did it take so long? Tell me anyone who fits the description better than Fred Lutes. Fred turned 80 last year, but he can’t seem to slow down. He admits he’s got great genes. Now he’s got a Steinie, too.