Acorns at Itasca

My daughter's sixth grade social studies class is spending the year studying Minnesota history.  What they are going to do for the other three quarters of the year, I have no idea.

She was very excited to tell me about a passage in her social studies book describing how indeginous people who lived near Lake Itasca (the headwaters of the Mississippi) used acorns as a large part of their diet.  It was one of those, "Hey, my dad's not a complete crackpot" moments we parents live for.

Speaking of Minnesota history, the University of Minnesota Forestry School used to have a research station in Itasca State Park, and the forestry curriculum required a 3 week field session there prior to your junior year.  This was September, 1987.  Acorns would have been dropping all around us, but back then my diet consisted much more of hops and barley than of acorns & wild rice.

And, of course, my attention was focused on the preeminent event in Minnesota history:  the Twins were on their way to their first World Series victory!