Jordan Minnesota

boffy had her first radiation treatment yesterday. What a strange thing to do, I mean you know it is a serious procedure, but you just walk in and walk out. Rowan went with us for the first treatment, so I took her for a tour of the facility. I stole a wheelchair and wheeled her around showing her all the cool things I knew as a kid who used to hang around the university of Minnesota.

Earlier during the workday I went to St. Peter Minnesota on business. I managed to stop in Jordan for the first time. What a creepy little town. For those of you not in the know about Jordan Minnesota, it was quite famous in the mid 80's for a pedophile ring. There were 21 indictments handed down by the Scott county district attorney for this group of people, which is literally about a third of the adult population of this town, who were involved in this elaborate pedophile ring. They would play these weird games, they'd play spin the bottle, they'd get to fuck each other's kids, and they'd take each other's kids home and things like that. All these parents got lawyers, and the district attorney was afraid that these kids would collapse under cross-examination. With domineering adults screaming at them that they're lying. So, they dropped all the charges. Nothing ever became of it and everyone went back to their normal lives. Even though the evidence was there, they could not get the kids to testify in court so the case fell apart. The district attorney was voted out of office during the next election and the whole damn thing was swept under the rug.

Everyone then stuck their fingers in their ears, made a humming noise and chanted “this kind of thing does not happen in Minnesota, this kind of thing does not happen in Minnesota, this kind of thing does not happen in Minnesota”.

Big Black wrote a song about it called “Jordan Minnesota”, and it was somewhat etched in Minnesota history as a taboo subject.

Fast forward to 2004, and I make my first visit to this little town. In the past I had passed it by on the freeway, in fact we had all passed it by on the freeway. There always seemed to be an invisible barrier around the town that told you to go away. An urge that whispered to you to just leave the place alone, to quietly pass by. We all have used the excuse in the past that we did not have the time to visit as we rolled by, but I know we only used that as an excuse, we actually wanted absolutely nothing to do with the creepy little place. But yesterday I had enough of these little warnings and took a left turn into Jordan Minnesota.

Jordan was a spider web of bending streets and bridges crossing a corkscrew creek running through the town. I followed the main road into the downtown, an old downtown of one and two story brick buildings. The downtown featured the classic single traffic light intersection and there was light traffic moving through, but very few parked cars. I also made note of an absence of 2004 election signs, like this little town was completely insulated from the outside world, or maybe even the major parties to this day say “not with a ten foot pole”. The townspeople hung about here and there in no apparent hurry to do anything. I could feel a vibe though. In almost all small towns in Minnesota you get these “who the fuck are you?” looks if you stop and look around. Jordan was no different, although I got the feeling they could see right through me and knew why I was there. That they knew I was there to see the little town that fucks their kids and an overwhelming feeling that I was not welcome. That there was a nasty little secret hidden from view in the quiet little town.

But I wanted photographic evidence that I dared cross the town line into Jordan Minnesota, so I made a small tour looking for a decent photo opportunity. I found the old water tower, took a few shots and got the fuck out of Dodge. The place was creeping me out.

I am so going to go back. I’ve never got such a creepy vibe from a Minnesota town, it was kind of cool.