Minnesotans are Kinda Funny, Doncha Know.
Note to Hosts, alerters, etc.: This has implications beyond the basic story. Please read to the end.
Yesterday was the date for the annual gathering of my wife's cousins and other assorted relatives. This year, my wife and I were it as hosts. It being the middle of September, we decided to hold it outdoors and grill bratwursts and hot dogs to feed the hungry horde. We provided the sausages for the stone soup that is the standard food strategy for these family gatherings, and relied on the attendees to round out the meal with assorted associated menu items.
Anyhow, our two days of preparations were complete. All of the mismatched outdoor furniture had the cobwebs brushed off and the tables covered with the usual dollar store plastic tablecloths. Accumulated plastic utensils were brought together, and the grill loaded up with charcoal.
Promptly at 2 PM, my wife's always reliable relatives started arriving. Oldsters with walkers and wheelchairs, boomers, millennials, and even a few children trooped into our back yard, ready to share their stories and gobble up the food. Everyone is of Norwegian heritage in my wife's family, except those who have married into the family, and who are now involuntary Norwegians by marriage.
With eating set for 4 PM (things are done on schedule in my wife's family), I fired up the grill and readied the sausages. The crockpot of baked beans was retrieved from the kitchen and the buffet table set up in some sort of order I do not comprehend. Then...just as I was putting the first round of sausages on the grill, it started to rain. Now, it hasn't rained in St. Paul for a couple of weeks, and this rain was supposed to hold off until after dark, but it's Minnesota, so a guy never knows about the weather.
My wife, playing at being a hostess to this sometimes stolid group of her relatives, offered the concept that we might move the party into the house, due to the rain. We even had chairs, etc. all set up in the house, just in case. But, no. That wouldn't do. This was a cookout, not an indoor party, so everyone demurred on trooping inside. The rain fell steadily on.
I cooked brats and franks, transferred them to their serving dish, and all of these Norwegian relatives and the Norwegians by marriage with them trooped to the buffet table, loaded their plates and returned to the tables. It was still raining. The elders had the only table with an umbrella, so they stayed where they were, while others brought them plates. Nobody cared that it was raining, apparently. It was a cookout, after all.
Still, the more youthful members of the motley crew in attendance did make some allowances for the rain. One by one, they carried their chairs, two benches from the long table, and their plates of food and lined up under the eaves of the house. Twenty Norwegians and Norwegians by marriage, all sitting in a row against the house, under the eaves, eating their brats and beans. It was classic.
Later, after everyone had left, my wife and I were doing a post-mortem on the gathering and were laughing our asses off at all those people sitting against the back wall of the house in the rain, while there was a perfectly good house with chairs enough for the entire lot just steps away.
I said that it reminded me a lot of politics in our country, with so many people willing to sit outside in the rain rather than to take the effort to move the party indoors and make changes that would benefit them. For the relatives at my party, the idea that it was a cookout and that one eats outdoors at a cookout overrode their discomfort at sitting with their backs against the wall under the eaves. For many here in the US, it seems as though we'd rather have our backs against some sort of wall than to make the changes needed to provide relief from the troubles that plague us. We're as stubborn as my wife's relatives of Norwegian heritage, it seems.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
= new reply since forum marked as read
yah sure by golly.. (My husband is from Minnesota..went to North High (Mpls)a gazillion years ago) ..and I have to tell you.. he has the same family.. once the plan is set.. by George you are going to stick to that plan come hell or high water..
There is so much truth in what you said, I have to tell you.. I lived through a similar event earlier this summer.. rain came.. and we were still outside under the awning by the garage with the grill going..
Thank you for the story.. and the hard truth in its details.. been there and done that!
It is clear that you got it.
my dad was a Minnesotan-Norwegian 
and honestly, when I go to Minnesota it feels strange to actually see women who look like me - natural blondes with no or little makeup
