Robert alterted me to this Fargo site created by James Lileks,
a Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist born in Fargo. The way he weaves
his written reflections together with historic postcards is an excellent example of online
place-based writing, and I think I’ll show it to my students next
sememster as they’re writing their essay on where they are from.
Here’s a snippet from his site introduction:
This site is
not intended as a historical account of Fargo or downtown – just a
recollection of Fargo through the medium of postcards. I should note
that the city has grown bigger than I could ever have imagined; that I
am proud to have been born and raised there; and that I’ve spent more
of my life in Minneapolis than Fargo, but Fargo is home in a way
Minneapolis can never be. I remember it when it was smaller, when it
seemed alone, and when it was my entire world. Never so big that I felt
afraid, and never so small that there wasn’t something new to discover.
not intended as a historical account of Fargo or downtown – just a
recollection of Fargo through the medium of postcards. I should note
that the city has grown bigger than I could ever have imagined; that I
am proud to have been born and raised there; and that I’ve spent more
of my life in Minneapolis than Fargo, but Fargo is home in a way
Minneapolis can never be. I remember it when it was smaller, when it
seemed alone, and when it was my entire world. Never so big that I felt
afraid, and never so small that there wasn’t something new to discover.
As a teenager, I thought Fargo was a prison sentence. Consider this my apology.