Photography | Hometown Pride | Sandi’s January Prompt
Rochester, Minnesota, is a Good Place to Be
January Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Hometown Pride”
Do cornfields surround the Mayo Clinic?
I grew up in Austin. If you’re an American outside the Upper Midwest, it’s not the Austin you thought of. I grew up in Austin, Minnesota.
In Austin, my dad worked for forty years for Hormel Foods, the maker of Spam, Black Label Bacon, Cure 81 Ham, and more. The Hormel plant blew its whistle every day at 7 am, noon, 1 pm, and 5 pm. And when it cured bacon, it emitted an odor that people loved or hated. Spam enjoys a parallel in that everyone loves or hates the concoction. There is no in-between.
But this story is not about Austin.
During my boyhood, I looked up to Rochester, about 45 miles northeast of home.
Rochester is home to the Mayo Clinic, a collection of about 75 buildings (including two large hospitals), and some 39,000 employees. Patients do not go to the Mayo Clinic. It is so big that they go through the Mayo Clinic (and sometimes get lost).
As a boy, after one view of the marble facade of the twenty-story Mayo Building that occupies a…
