Toy Cars From Notorious "Salmon House" Get A New Home...

Photo and blog post by John Hoff

So maybe I visited some relatives a few days ago. And maybe I had some souvenirs of North Minneapolis with me, a couple toy cars I found inside a desk drawer in the dumpster behind 2700 Morgan Ave. N. a few months ago.

I thought it would be cool to bring these little cars to a wholesome country environment, where they could have a new life.

I must say, my relatives are pretty casual about the all stuff I do in North Minneapolis...

They live far out in the sticks, the kind of place where residents wave to passing cars and if you don't wave back, the residents might follow you, a high-powered rifle at the ready in a gun rack in the cab of their jacked-up truck. The fact these toy cars were from a house of ill-repute didn't bother my country mouse relatives. After all, my family is nothing if not incredibly committed to an ultra-green, dumpster-o-centric, scrounge-o-matic freegan lifestyle. Check out the books I've written on the subject of dumpster diving, click here.

So washing the cars with hot, soapy water was good enough. They're clean, now. They no longer have germs of ill-repute.

My little relative, pictured above, who just loves toy cars (click here) promptly named the vehicles "Herbie and Doug." That's when I found out all his toy cars have individual names, and he remembers each of them.

When I last saw them, "Herbie and Doug" had forgotten all about their traumatic past life in North Minneapolis, and were happily chasing each other, talking in an animated fashion.