Like they say, “The nice thing about living in a small town is that, when you don’t know what in the world you’re doing...everyone else does.”

I live in a small town...International Falls, MN—the “Icebox of the Nation.” I have lived in this box for 10 years. I am known as a wife and a mother to four boys. This is a title I’m proud to hold. And this is a town I’m happy to call home.

I wonder, how long does it take for a place to become home? Is home where the heart is...where we feel safe to leave our heart? Is home the place where we make the most memories, where we have our babies and then raise them? Or is home just the place where we spend the majority of our time...where we grow up? Perhaps it’s the place where we feel most loved...or the most comfortable.
 
I am comfortable living in the Icebox. But no matter what the temperature is outside, I’m comfortable enough to be myself. This is a good thing. Every morning for two weeks this summer, still in my pajamas, I dropped off my six year old, Joey, for his swimming lessons. Forty-five minutes later I would pick Joey up and present my “new look” to the same instructors, swimmers and parents who saw my PJ, “drop-off”, disheveled look and wondered whether they should call child protective services.

But when they realized it was me who was Joey’s mom, they knew I took my role seriously as both princess and queen living in a castle of boys. My personal hobby is self-decorating. Each day I find enjoyment in the way I choose to costume myself. A 45-minute swim lesson is just enough time for me and my personal activity. Living in a small town gives me the freedom I need to be the character that I am. There is never any traffic in the Icebox and the distance to drive all three boys to their activities is within one mile of our home. My “baby” is the only one who goes back home with me during “activity time,” for it’s his time to sit on the bean bag by himself and watch Mr. Dress-Up (a Mr. Rogers type) on the Canadian station. I like Mr. Dress-Up. I like how every day he creates a new costume and has a new situation to present and perform in...just like me. I run upstairs to create my own new look and try out different hairdos and I’m engaging in my favorite recreational activity.

Haircut time for my sons is an activity that we all look forward to. It is the barber we visit when it comes to boys and their hair. The barber gives the best haircut because he knows how to use the clippers. With a barber you don’t need an appointment; it is first come, first serve. And we don’t mind the wait as there are usually several men ahead of us in their late 60’s ready to tell their stories. The grandfather characters interact with the boys, telling them about the snow forts they used to build, the pranks they’ve pulled, and the fish they’ve caught. They also address me and offer tips on having a happy marriage. I have felt so secure in this setting that I’ve actually left my young sons while I ran home to check on a pot roast in my oven.

When it comes to my own head of hair I have visited most of the beauty salons in town and let them cut and color my stands while I, in turn, offered my own strong opinions on how this should be done. Visiting my aunt and uncle in NYC for a $110.00 city girl hair style gave me a great cut but I prefer the pampering of my Icebox hair team and the prices they charge. They really know me best and are better equipped to handle my small town, diva attitude. But I did enjoy discovering Canal Street in NYC and all the wonderful “knock-off” items for sale. I came home with a faux Kate Spade hand bag. My friends saw my new bag and were so complimentary that they wanted to know where they could get one too. Did Jacklyn Smith have a sister, Kate, who had opened a new line of purses, featured at our local K-mart (our only “department store”) or had another Charlie’s angel joined Jacklyn in clothing and accessory merchandizing, they wondered?  

Clothes shopping may be limited in the Icebox, but the food I’ve enjoyed, provided by the church community via potlucks, fund-raisers, a child’s illness, my back surgery and birthing babies, is second to none. Having had four babies, I have sampled some of the best homemade pies, chicken dinners and tater tot casseroles that I’m sure will ever entertain my taste buds. After the birth of my third son, my next door neighbor, Alyce, presented me with a delicious pie she had made with rhubarb picked from her garden. In the middle of the pie’s first night, I ate the whole thing. I had left a fork ready and set in the pie plate so I could eat it, as needed.
 
I’ve had Muriel Boyum’s roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy dinner delivered to my home three times by her husband Erv. Muriel’s mashed potatoes are smooth and buttery with the consistency of whip cream. The beef is moist and tender and cut up in perfect little squares. The gravy is savory and smooth as a rich molasses. But the meal doesn’t stop there. Muriel also presents “melt in your mouth” dinner rolls, seasoned and buttered green beans picked from her garden, a banana cream pie and cut-out sugar cookies, and also a carton of chocolate milk for the kids.

My friend, Shana, was excited about these meal opportunities as she had a suspicion she was pregnant but first she had to skip across the border, to Wal-Mart in Canada, to purchase a pregnancy test. She could have bought one at City Drug in International Falls but she really wanted to tell her husband she was pregnant before somebody else did. As Shana suspected, she was expecting and nine months later, she had her third child, a baby girl, named Avery Grace. The church ladies generously provided meals for the first two weeks Shana was home from the hospital. And to Shana’s delight, her first meal was Muriel’s roast beef dinner.

While food is definitely part of Icebox entertainment, there are also variety shows that offer an escape. I have been a part of a few Broadway on the Border events where I’ve been able to portray Annie Oakley, Eliza Doolittle and Ado Annie. Most recently the town welcomed, Icebox Radio Theatre, thanks to Jeff, the writer/drama guy brought to town by his wife, the new librarian and their two children from Oregon. There are also quite a few talented musicians in town like Paul Severson, the musician and composer who wrote the theme song for Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

But when a person is not able to watch these performers on the historical Backus school stage, there is always the talent of the locals, singing karaoke in a neighborhood bar. Not that long ago I went out on a Saturday night with some girlfriends to listen to a karaoke contest. I thought about entering but I hadn’t prepared a piece and I like to be prepared. Nevertheless, on Monday I got a phone call from a lady at church wondering if, “the same girl that sang a solo on church that Sunday was the same girl at the bar on Saturday?”

“Yes, that was me. But I didn’t sing and if I had I would have come out as ‘Debbie’ and not under a pseudo name, ‘Bambi’, like my girlfriend had done.”

I called my pastor right away so he had all the facts straight because in the end, who can tell what color the story would take on?

“Pastor Larry, its Debbie. Yeah, if you hear I was at the bar, singing karaoke and dancing on tables, don’t believe all of it...I didn’t have a song prepared and I’m a terrible dancer.”
 
After the call from church lady it would have been easy for me to have felt judged and then become angry at the smallness of the box I lived in. Instead I looked in the box and saw a lady who, because of the town’s smallness, had gotten to know me quite well from a project we had both directed. I knew she genuinely cared about my well being and reputation. We are actually closer friends because of karaoke night and now, we sometimes sing together...in church, of course.

Because the Icebox is small, we all try to stick together and celebrate what we can and endure what we can’t. International Falls has two things that set it apart from any other town in the U.S.—the cold and the smell. We celebrate the cold each and every year at our annual “Icebox Days.” This is the time of year where we can bowl frozen turkeys down Main Street in 40-below weather. It is also the time for “Smoosh” races. Town folk gather outside the Super Valu grocery store and watch as five-person teams strap their feet to a 2x4 wood plank and then attempt to ski across the parking lot. This is fun, family entertainment.

The smell, on the other hand, is a year-round event and no one is necessarily celebrating that, although it does happen to be the smell of the town’s “bread and butter”...the paper mill. I remember taking my two youngest, David and Joey, along with Auntie Sharon across the border so Auntie could purchase duty free cigarettes. Joey, who was four at the time, alarmed me as he tried to escape the van and was pulling at the door to get out as we stood at a stand still.

“Joey”, I cried, “What are you doing?”

He responded in a very matter of fact way, “I have to get out of here, Auntie Sharon stinks.”

After ten years I barely notice the smell anymore. There have only been a few times where I awoke in the middle of the night and thought that my husband forgot to dispose of the baby’s poopy diaper but then I remembered that our baby has been out of diapers for a year and a half now. Still I wouldn’t move because of the stink. I believe in, “bloom where you’re planted,” and it’s probably because of this that we, the people of the Icebox, have such strong and noble characters... we are all well-fertilized.

I’ve decided that living in International Falls is where I now feel most at home. I am free to be who I am and I am proud to claim the title of “just a mom.” Although as anyone knows who is “just a mom,” there are many more roles that go with this job description than we would have expected. Perhaps, I would bloom wherever I was planted but I think the Icebox has helped me to blossom and become the best wife and mother I can be. (Although, I still don’t home school and my kids eat white bread.) In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy discovered what “being home” was all about and learned that because of this knowledge, her magic slippers could take her home in two seconds.

She told Glinda the good witch, “I guess it wasn’t enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em and it’s, if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire, I’ll look no farther than my own back yard, because if it isn’t there, then I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right?

“That’s right”, replies Glinda.

And so Dorothy returns to her small Kansas farm and to the people that know and love her best. And while I may travel “over the rainbow” to visit bigger cities and experience the pleasures of their fancy foods and professional entertainers, I really am most comfortable living here in the Icebox with the people who know and love me best. This is now my home and there’s no place like it.