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WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Good morning. With news from Minnesota Public Radio, I'm William Wilcoxen. The Minnesota portion of a forest fire that's burned more than 12,000 acres is now under control. Fire officials say they're confident the remaining 2/3 of the fire across the Canadian border will be declared under control later today.

However, the forecasters do not expect any rain until midweek. And temperatures are predicted to be higher than normal, with winds gusting to 30 miles per hour. Rain helped bring the fire under control, but Fire Information Officer Art Wertz says fire danger remains high to extreme.

ART WERTZ: We got a brief break here when we got some moisture. We got between 1 inch and 2 inches on some of the areas, particularly around the fire. But all that did is it knocked down some of the fire conditions we had to help us in establishing lines and in some of our mop-ups. But we looked at a lot of areas out there, and the moisture didn't soak down in more than some places, maybe 2, 3, 4 inches at most.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Bans on campfires remain in effect in Cook County and in South Central Ontario. The president of Luther College is preparing to assume the leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Reverend George Anderson was elected ELCA bishop by delegates to the churchwide assembly in Minneapolis over the weekend.

Anderson says his challenge will be to keep the variety of ELCA churches and congregations working together. Anderson compares the church to the human body.

GEORGE ANDERSON: I think my job is to make sure the circulation is good, that the body gets plenty of exercise, and that it gets solid nourishment. So that means communication. It means service, and it means keeping close to our Lutheran roots.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Anderson assumes the post of ELCA bishop on November 1. Police commendations are being recommended for two Rochester residents for saving the life of a young girl over the weekend. 10-year-old Christella Rocha pulled four-year-old Faltu Ali out of a swimming pool at an apartment complex on Saturday. Apartment manager then gave the victim mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and she was revived.

Mostly sunny skies over the region today. Highs from the lower 70s in the Arrowhead to the upper 80s around Worthington. And the Twin Cities is mostly sunny high in the middle 80s. Currently in Moorhead, sunny and 69, and in the Twin Cities, sunny and 74. And that's the latest news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm William Wilcoxen.

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MELANIE SOMMERS: It's six minutes after 10 o'clock, and you're listening to Midmorning on the FM news station. I'm Melanie Sommer, sitting in for Paula Schroeder this morning. Minnesota Public Radio operates in association with the following institutions, Saint John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Concordia College in Moorhead, Luther College in Decorah, the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, Michigan Technological University in Houghton, Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, and the College of Saint Benedict in Saint Joseph.

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The lines separating the races in Matthew Little's childhood literally divided his hometown of Washington, North Carolina. The race line was imposed on his all-Black infantry unit in World War II. And the race line was imposed on Matt Little again in Minneapolis when he was rejected as a firefighter because of his skin color.

Today on our Voices of Minnesota interview series, we hear from Matt Little. Our voices series is a regular feature of Midmorning every week at this time when we hear from people with an interesting life history. 72-year-old Matt Little lives in Edina. He's spent his entire adult life trying to eliminate barriers based on race. Matt Little told the FM news station's Kate Smith his father told his children they had to leave the South to escape racism.

KATE SMITH: When you say the things that you experienced, that you assumed were the norm, are you talking about things like open segregation and education in schools that were just openly--

MATTHEW LITTLE: Exactly, exactly. The living in two different worlds, one, what I consider not a normal world and one a subnormal world in the same little town in which things were so clearly delineated between the racist per se. For example, now, a good example of the fact that you could very well tell where the so-called white community ended and the Black community began.

There wasn't any question about it. They would not-- because of the fact that the Black community was not paved. It was dust-- it was sand and dusty streets.

KATE SMITH: There was a literal line in the road?

MATTHEW LITTLE: Exactly, and never the twain shall meet. There was no question about that. And we accepted that as being the way that it should be. Now as I look back at it now, that's a novel thing, the fact that we accepted that. We could go-- you downtown, when you go downtown on Saturdays to buy things, you could not put on the clothes.

You had to hold them up to you because there was some, I guess, that they would-- the clothes would be contaminated if we were to put them on. We go to the theater, and we had to go up a fire escape on the outside-

KATE SMITH: To get in.

MATTHEW LITTLE: To get in and set up what they call the crow's nest to look at the theater. And we did that. Could hardly wait until Saturday do after we did our duties so that we could get our little $0.15 from daddy and go downtown to go to the theater and see the westerns. But all of those things, we accepted as [INAUDIBLE].

KATE SMITH: Did it ever seem funny to you that you grew up in a town named for the founding father of our country and experienced such an equal--

MATTHEW LITTLE: It's afterward, but at the time, no. And I think that's one of the novelties of the whole situation-

KATE SMITH: Washington, North Carolina, right?

MATTHEW LITTLE: That we accepted that. Of course, later, after being involved and began-- and realizing that there was another America, that it should not be that way, then, of course, I became very conscious of all of those things and fought awfully hard to keep from becoming bitter as a result of them as-- whereas my father, of course, who had lived all of his life under that condition. And he knew that was the way of life that he had to live.

But even so, he wanted it better for his kids. And so that would not have to be the way. And so the thing that was endowed into us from the time that I can remember that education is the answer, that there are two things that we have to do. You have to get an education, and then you'd have to leave the South. Those are the two things that we look forward to.

KATE SMITH: So was your father one of the forces in your life that encouraged you to consider college and higher education and automatic?

MATTHEW LITTLE: Definitely so. And as a matter of fact, he knew how to play the system, too.

KATE SMITH: How do you mean?

MATTHEW LITTLE: He knew the psychology of handling his bosses, the white man. He know that they would like to see him as some kind of a clown. And he could do it, too, as far as the tap dance and the scratching of the--

KATE SMITH: Willing to play the role.

MATTHEW LITTLE: He played the role terrifically. As a matter of fact-- but he was still a very energetic person and very ingenious because he never allowed his boss to know the things that he was doing on the side. He developed a farm, a nice little farm. And when he had his house built, he would never let his boss downtown to know that that was his house.

KATE SMITH: That he was building a house?

MATTHEW LITTLE: Instead, he claimed that it was the-- who actually lived next door, the principals of the school's house. And I don't think Mr. Moss ever found out that that house was my dad's. And when he was finally able to-- when he bought a car-- he always had or did ride his bicycle to work.

And so what he would do, he would leave his bike down at my uncle's house, who lives closer to the mill where daddy worked. He'd drive his car there and then pick up his bicycle and drive his bicycle. And those were the kind of things that he did all of his life in order to-- and he had eight kids, of course, in order to see that his kids could get the education so that they would not be subject to this kind of indignities for the rest of their lives, too. And so he was certainly, no doubt about it, an inspiration.

KATE SMITH: You mentioned that your dad also said to you and your siblings that education wasn't enough, that you would have to leave the South.

MATTHEW LITTLE: Yes.

KATE SMITH: How did that play into your development as a young man and as an adult? Was that something--

MATTHEW LITTLE: Well, I'll tell you the truth, that was the kind of a disillusionment, too, when I found out, because my parents' and my dad in particular, because my mother died very young, that that was a panacea, that that was kind of the promised land, and that things would be as they should north of the Mason-Dixon line.

KATE SMITH: That's what your dad thought or what he told you?

MATTHEW LITTLE: That's what I'm sure he felt because he told us that all the time. But that was the disillusionment when I did find his recent-- find out that the-- although it was not as rigid nor lawful, but many of the same things I found that were happening in North that were in the South.

KATE SMITH: Are you saying you experienced the same sort of segregation in your army years during World War II, right?

MATTHEW LITTLE: Yes, the army during my stints in World War II was a completely segregated army, no question about it.

KATE SMITH: So you were in an all-Black infantry outfit?

MATTHEW LITTLE: An all-Black infantry outfits, which was even rare. The psychology of even the army service at that time was that Blacks did not have the intelligence to even be in the kind of-- to be in the infantry type organization. So the majority of them were what they call service units, were in service units, and they only had a very few that were in the infantry.

And the unit that I was in happened to be in one of the few infantry outfits. And it was an independent infantry regiment that was attached to various other larger infantry outfits. And I can remember very distinctly when we were attached to the Third Army prior to its going overseas to Italy. The Third Army was the army that did all the damage in Italy.

And we were attached to them and maneuvering in Louisiana. And in maneuvers, of course, you tried to break through whenever you can. And we broke through, and for the first time, the army general realized that he had a Black unit, a Black infantry regiment attached to his Third Army.

KATE SMITH: He hadn't known that before, right?

MATTHEW LITTLE: He hadn't known that. Well, with the size of an army, as many regiments as there are that comprise an army, there's no-- the general, the head general, the four-star general seldom gets a chance to see all of those. But from his vantage point during a breakthrough like that, you get a chance to see who the heck they are. And the next day, we got orders to pack up and move to go to Seattle for debarkation overseas to the Aleutian Islands. I never will forget that.

KATE SMITH: As a result, do you think of your performance?

MATTHEW LITTLE: I accept there's no question. As a result, [INAUDIBLE] the discovery that we were Black organization. And those kinds of things, I can-- of course, this was definitely in the South, and we were in basic training in Spartanburg, South Carolina. And at that time, I think Strom Thurmond was governor there.

And he banned Black newspapers from coming to the camps because of the fact that the Black newspaper always have been advocacy type. And they were lamenting against the fact that they were not permitting Blacks to serve in the infantry outfits and so forth. And he claimed that it was bad for the morale of the soldiers to allow those papers to be there on the camps.

So there are so many of those kinds of things that has shaped my determination to do the kind of thing as far as working in civil rights is concerned.

MELANIE SOMMERS: Matthew Little talking with the FM news station's Kate Smith on our regular Monday interview series Voices Of Minnesota heard every week at this time on Midmorning. I'm Melanie Sommer, sitting in for Paula Schroeder this morning. Matt Little has been a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People from his days as a child in Washington, North Carolina.

Little is the retired president of the NAACP chapter in Minneapolis. He came to Minneapolis in 1948. He was bitterly disappointed at not winning a spot in medical school at Howard University and felt he had disappointed his father. He found work as a waiter at a Minneapolis hotel where Blacks were not allowed to stay.

Later, Little was rejected in his bid to become a Minneapolis firefighter. He told the FM news station's Kate Smith the incident became part of the basis for a federal lawsuit, which led to the desegregation of the Minneapolis fire department.

KATE SMITH: You came to Minneapolis, and it seems to me struggled for a time to find a good job, one that you are accepted into.

MATTHEW LITTLE: Yes, indeed.

KATE SMITH: Battled against the city and the fire department.

MATTHEW LITTLE: That's right.

KATE SMITH: Tell me a little about that.

MATTHEW LITTLE: Minneapolis did not see Blacks in any capacity other than those of servants, servant capacity. Like for example, when I came here with a BS degree, major in biological science, minor in chemistry and everything-- but the only job that I could get was one as a waiter at the Dan Curtis Hotel. I worked there for a while. Finally, was able to get another. Found out they were hiring veterans at the post office and was able to get on at the post office.

Tried as a temporary, of course. Tried for the-- and found out that there was a vacancy because by this time, I was married and had kids. And I had to put some bread on the table. And so I found out about-- they were hiring for firemen. I said, that sounds like a pretty good job. So I tried there.

And that's really a classic story about that fire thing because of the fact that I had-- of course, was pretty good as far as an athlete. And I had boxed in college as a flyweight. I had done some track. And I had played basketball and football in high school, so I was pretty good. And had been in the service and was pretty good physically.

So certainly, I had no problems with passing the physical aspects of the fireman inside. As a matter of fact, they did indicate that I-

KATE SMITH: You did well on the test.

MATTHEW LITTLE: Broke the record, the whole thing. And also for the written, I had no problem with that. I was just out of college, fresh out-- but there was one other phase. And for all those phases, of course, you just had-- you were only a number. You did not identify with the--

Then the other part was the oral interview of which-- first chance they get to see you in person, who you were in the whole bit. But all in all three of the phases, you had to make at least 75. And so I did the interview. And they gave me only three-- asked me only three questions.

And on the basis of my answers to those three simple questions, they gave me a 73.3, which means did not have enough-- that did not qualify me to pass. I flunked out because I did not make at least 75 on all the three phases. So that bittered me terribly so.

And as I tell the story, I-- as matter of fact, I was so bitter that I just insisted on finding out who did that and what their bases were. And I finally got a hold of a retired captain, fire captain, who told me very bluntly that he just didn't think it would work out. As a 32-year veteran fireman, he said that they kind of closeness required that makes a [INAUDIBLE] in that manner could never work out on the fire department.

So that was-- which was just blatant racism, no question about it. Unfortunately, at that time, we did not have a civil rights department to go to.

KATE SMITH: What'd you do?

MATTHEW LITTLE: I had no basis but to swallow it, at least temporarily. Anyway, as we came back later in my involvement with the NAACP and so forth, and then when that was-- and realized-- and a fireman came to me and indicated the same, that they would not-- we filed suit, of course,

KATE SMITH: But not until later?

MATTHEW LITTLE: Yeah, not till-- no, until considerably later. Fireman has been-- and that was as a result of a court order that they had to put-- what was it? I think what 20 or so fireman, I think the court order required. And of course, one of the-- my case was one of the things that led to that decision.

And then after that was broken, the next thing, of course, was one of promoting of the fireman. And I was involved again there. And we got a court-- we got a decree from the court. And that has been just a recent happening just a few years-- just a year or so ago.

KATE SMITH: How do you feel about how we're using school, public school to help build community and to help integrate and desegregate our community? And tell me a little bit about how you see the Twin Cities working, whether we're doing-- are we doing it the right way? Are we going in the right direction, trying to bring the suburban school districts into some sort of Metropolitan desegregation plan? Or is that just not likely to work, and we should be realistic about that and find a different way?

MATTHEW LITTLE: I feel very strongly that the solution-- that the only solution as far as education is desegregated education, is to desegregate and whatever is necessary in order to do that. And I do mean not just race alone, but economic. To concentrate poor people in one area-- and certainly, whenever you talk about poor people, they are going to be-- the majority are always going to-- in America is going to be African-American. There's no doubt about that.

And I think to permit that and make no attempt to do anything about it, said, well, that's the way it is, so we'll have to live with that kind of thing, I think that is the worst thing that can happen to our kids. And I think we can see plenty of good examples of how it had happened in cities like Detroit and so forth. And I think it's ridiculous to think that there is something sacred about the dividing lines that divide Richfield from Minneapolis, whatever street at all, divide it from Brooklyn Center or what have you.

I think those are artificial barriers. And I think that it is important, I think it's extremely important that we do to the very extent possible. I am not saying that by no means it is not practical to bus kids way out to Elk River or someplace of that sort within-- but to the very extent that's possible. But rather than the institutionalize the configuration and make it worse and worse as we have here, we're going-- just asking for another Detroit.

KATE SMITH: Matt Little, in your lifetime, did you expect to see both the creation of and potentially the dismantling of affirmative action laws?

MATTHEW LITTLE: Now, I was certainly hopeful that something of that nature would be created. And I felt pretty good after seeing it come to fruition. And I felt pretty good of the feeling-- the realization that as an activist, to have taken part, to have been a part-- the little part that I had played in making that come to fruition.

And I am certainly very disheartened to see the fact that we have seemed to be going backward in that direction. I think that, again, because I think affirmative action, which the detractors try to characterize as being just racial preference, it goes a heck of a lot further than that. It means making America look more like America should in all areas.

KATE SMITH: Matt Little, I recall an announcement that you were retiring. And that was-- what? Five, six years ago.

MATTHEW LITTLE: I was retired as president of the NAACP. Yes, but I discovered later that you never as-- once you are in this struggle as a Black person, you never retire.

MELANIE SOMMERS: Matthew Little talking with the FM news station's Kate Smith. Our Voices of Minnesota series is also heard every Saturday afternoon as part of the Week in Review. The series is produced by Dan Olson with assistance from research intern Dan Romeo.

I'm Melanie Sommer, sitting in for Paula Schroeder. And you're listening to Midmorning on the FM news station. Coming up, we'll have a conversation with novelist Susan Chehak, who's out with a new novel called Smithereens. But first, a look at the latest in the news from William Wilcoxen.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Thank you, Melanie. After some confusion, Israeli police confirm five people are dead in today's suicide bombing in Jerusalem. An American and the suicide bomber are among the dead. The chief of pathology for the police also says two Americans are among more than 100 people who were wounded.

Investigators believe a book about far-right extremists may have influenced the Oklahoma City bombing suspects. Today's New York Times reports evidence in the case suggests that Timothy McVeigh shared a copy of the book Armed and Dangerous-- The Rise of the Survivalist Right with Terry Nichols. The paper says McVeigh checked the book out of an Arizona library and apparently gave it to Nichols to re-inspire his faith in the bombing plot.

About 300 Marines and sailors have left camp Pendleton, California, for the Persian Gulf amid new tensions with Iraq. The military says members of the First Marine Expeditionary Force left by air for Kuwait this morning. Yesterday 80 troops headed out from Fort Hood, Texas. In all, 1,400 troops will participate in military exercises in Kuwait.

US fire crews will take over fighting a forest fire in Canada now that a fire on the Minnesota side of the border is under control. Crews hope to have the Canadian fire under control later today. The cost of battling the blaze has grown to $2.5 million. A five-member team of experts from around the country is talking to police officers, lawyers, lawmakers, and concerned citizens about Minnesota's drunk driving laws and prevention programs. The team plans to issue an assessment at the end of the week.

Bonnie Labatt of the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving spoke to the panel this morning in Saint Paul. She says Minnesota has good laws, but enforcement could be better.

BONNIE LABATT: I think we need to maintain enforcement. If it's the child endangerment law where a drunk driver is driving and he has a three and four-year-old in that car, we need to get that fellow help.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Labatt and others say the state should also focus more on prevention programs and enforcement on college campuses. She says students need to get the message that any underage drinking is against the law. Mostly sunny skies over the region today. Highs from the lower 70s in the Arrowhead to the upper 80s around Worthington. In the Twin cities, mostly sunny, high in the middle 80s.

Currently, in Saint Cloud at 74 degrees. In Duluth, sunny and 69, and in the Twin Cities with sunny skies, 76 degrees. And Melanie, that's the latest from the newsroom.

MELANIE SUMMERS: Thank you, William. I'm Melanie Sommer, sitting in for Paula Schroeder on this Midmorning on the FM news station. It's now 33 minutes after 10 o'clock. May Caldwell thinks of herself as invisible. She has a plain face and goes about her life unobtrusively in the fictional small Iowa town of Linwood.

But in the book Smithereens, May's life is turned upside down by the arrival of a girl named Frankie. She smokes cigarettes, has her own car and a glove box that holds a handgun and a street smart maturity that fascinates the invisible May. They are the main characters in a new novel by Susan Taylor Chehak, whose previous works include Harmony, Dancing on Glass, and The Story of Annie D.

She tells the FM news station's Paula Schroeder she drew on her own upbringing in Iowa for the setting of Smithereens and on childhood experiences for some of the characters,

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: The feeling of being a good girl, doing the right things and following the rules and doing what you should do and really being invisible that way because you're not making a fuss or causing any problems or doing anything untoward that might draw attention to yourself. And that's how May feels in her life. She's a loved child, but she pretty much is on her own and left to do whatever she wants and is hoping to become-- knows she has the potential to be more, to be an outstanding person. But she's not quite sure how that will ever happen or whether that will ever be recognized in her.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And yet she's got this other side, too, that is fascinated with death, has thoughts of suicide. It's troubling.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Yeah, she is-- in a dramatic way, she says this, that she had tried, but not very hard. Almost a-- she flirts with death, and she's vaguely suicidal, but not seriously so, almost to bring some drama into her life.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Right. I was going to say that it's really an effort to jazz things up a little bit in what is really this pretty humdrum existence. There's really nothing wrong with the town. It's a wonderful, beautiful Iowa, small town.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Well, it doesn't seem to be anything wrong. The family-- what actually has gone on in her family is not so humdrum or quiet with her Uncle Brodie and the drama that had happened when she was a little girl. It's almost as though-- I felt that she was almost trying to inflict pain upon herself in order to make sure she was real, that she wasn't invisible, she wasn't the ghost girl that-- she at one point compares herself to the ghost girl that haunts the highway out on old highway 18 on prom nights in her prom dress and then disappears when you stop for her and leaves behind a aroma of woodsmoke and blood.

And she wonders if she's maybe not that. And part of her self-destructiveness, I think, is a testing of really her being, pinching herself to say, am I really here? And she's drawn high up on the inside of her thigh a heart in red magic marker outlined in black. And that's her knowing-- showing herself that there is more to this girl.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, a real act of rebellion, but very much hidden. You mentioned Uncle Brodie. And I think it's interesting to note that he was inspired by an actual relative of yours.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Brodie in the book is based on-- and the book is dedicated to-- in memory of Sam. My Uncle Sam and Brodie in the book attempted suicide as young men and were damaged. I don't think I give too much of the story away by saying that because--

PAULA SCHROEDER: No, that's a real shocking part of the book.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Yeah, there's actually more to that than meets the eye. In the beginning, you're finding out about what had happened to my Uncle Sam when-- I had always known that he had tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the mouth. And my family had sort of talked about it, but not really.

And I had known him as this sweet, wonderful, quiet man who was scarred and slightly damaged. He taught me how to blow bubble gum and how to pull the grass out of the ground and nibble at that little white tender in.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, yes, all the important things in life.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: But I was always haunted by what I knew he had done to become that sweet, quiet, gentle man. And at one point, I was back in the summer in Cedar Rapids, and my family's stories had never quite jibed. The way that people had told what had happened never quite made sense. And so I didn't really trust that they were telling me the whole truth.

I was sure that they were keeping a secret from me. So I went down to the Cedar Rapids' Gazette and looked up in the paper of-- they weren't clear which year it was even, which was so strange to me. But I found the year, and I found the place and the time that he had done it. And

I took the article over to the police station in Cedar Rapids. There, buried in Samuel Laverne Taylor's file, was Samuel Lord Taylor's file misfiled all those years ago-

PAULA SCHROEDER: Oh, my.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Which otherwise would have been destroyed. It had the shells. It had photos. It had all the statements that my family made that evening that he did that, and the girlfriend, who was the last person to be with him before. And the gun was in the basement of the police station. They asked me if I'd like to have it. And I said, well, I don't think so, because I had just finished--

I was right at the point of Dancing on Glass. There's a rifle that plays a very big part in that book and comes back to haunt a generation later. And I was saying, I don't want to take a rifle home with me. Thank you very much. Then having all the details of what he had done, and I realized that there was no secret. There was no crime.

It was not that anyone was hiding anything. It was just that what he had done was so horrific and such a tragedy that nobody wanted to talk about it anymore. And the image in the book is of Meems, the grandmother, May's grandmother, Brodie's mother, has a reading chair in her room that Brodie, after he's damaged himself, has soiled. And that chair is taken out. And Meems has it recovered in a pure white-- the pure white dazzle of a clean muslin slip.

And that's sort of-- what the Caldwell family has done is whitened over all of the harder, more tragic things that have happened, which is completely understandable. Everybody would want to do that. But the effect on May is that what felt to her to be a very important thing now is hidden.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, and she was shut down as a result. We're talking with Susan Taylor Chehak, whose novel is called Smithereens. So then Frankie comes along.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Into May's life, comes Frankie, yes.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And kind of opens things up a little bit. This is an interesting story, too, about how you got the inspiration for Frankie and how she happened to appear on the doorstep of the Caldwell home in your book.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Yeah, Frankie appears. Frankie was the foster daughter that May's mother, Vivian, adopted through a program that she calls the Federation, which is sort of like Save the Children sending money off to a foster child in Appalachia over the years from the time-- I think when Frankie was three until she turns about 16, at which point, she disappears for a couple of years. During that time, they exchanged letters back and forth. And Vivian even sent Frankie a typewriter, so she would learn to type and have a skill.

Now, I did exactly that. I had a foster daughter that I supported for all those years, and she was nothing like Frankie. But there was a point when I thought, this girl could show up on my doorstep. She knows where I am, and if she needed me, she could be here.

And so with that in mind and placing it in Iowa and knowing who May was as a character, I thought of this. And Frankie does indeed do that, shows up on the doorstep. Purportedly on her way across the country to the West Coast to become a movie star or have some wonderful life, she just had stopped in to say hello, but she stays.

PAULA SCHROEDER: While she is there, May, really, as I said, opens up and becomes-- tries to do what she formerly would have considered dangerous things, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. And there is one section where she goes into a department store, and she starts lifting things.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: "As I stood in the shoe department on the second floor, slipping my old sneakers off my feet and stepping into a pair of black tasseled leather loafers that I'd found poised on a clear plastic display stand, heels together just so, toes pointed out. When I couldn't find a mirror to admire them in, I wandered off into the dress department to pose. There was a black skirt with a trim of pinkish roses circling its hem, a red striped dress with a low scooped neck, a green silk shift. I held up one outfit and admired it, then another and another.

And I wouldn't have been able to say just exactly how it happened, but after a while, it came to me that I'd pretty much walked all through the whole of Altman's store, and I was still wearing those black leather loafers with the tassels on the toes, and not one person seemed to have noticed me. Nobody looked like they very much cared. So that was when I decided that I'd just keep them.

I rode the escalator down to the first floor. I could tell that I'd become a ghost again. I was innocence, the picture of nonchalance. I strolled back through the jewelry department. I spoke to one of the clerks there, a young woman in spiked high heels with reddened lips and eyelashes thick with black mascara. I even went so far as to try on a pair of earrings, blue glass, teardrops dangling from a strand of delicate gold chain.

Too plain, I told the clerk. I was looking for something a little more exciting, I said, something just slightly more wild. I needed some brightening up." And of course, then she walks right on out the store with the shoes on her feet. And that's her first really petty crime.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, and the beginning of a new life-

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Yes, for her.

PAULA SCHROEDER: For May Caldwell. This does seem to happen to a lot of girls. Like you were saying earlier, that they're brought up to be good girls and to do the right thing. And sometimes in those teenage years, there just needs to be some drama, a little bit more excitement.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Some wildness, some brightening up that says, here I am with a little flair. I don't know that it needs to go as far as Frankie has taken it. Frankie's a girl with a bottle of bourbon and a gun in her glove box. So that's-- she's far on the other side of that.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Of course, the wild life and the brightening up also includes an older man. That's kind of troubling because you wonder really how often this really does occur, that there's a 16, 17-year-old girl that maybe a 30-something-year-old man sets his eyes on. And they can be pretty vulnerable.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: And sees as a prize. And this is the other element really biographical of mine. I was in boarding school in Washington, DC, and they used to drop us off on Saturday afternoons in town. And I was sitting on a park bench in Georgetown in Dumbarton Oaks.

And I was approached by a man, a Greek man, who was admiring the coin that I had around on a chain around my neck. And we had a lovely conversation. To me at the time, I thought that he was way old. He was probably 35, but I thought he was a much older man. And I was all innocence and told him where I went to school and what my name was. And we had a very nice conversation and then parted ways.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And nobody had talked to you about never talking to strangers?

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Oh, of course. My mother told me all those things, but I never paid any attention to that. What does she know? Now, of course, I can talk to-- he was a nice man. He wasn't-- he was just very friendly, I thought. He called the school the next week and said, you can come with me for the weekend. We'll tell the school that I'm your uncle.

No one will know, and I'll show you a wonderful time. We'll have a great time. You can be away from that boarding school environment and really come and see the city. And we'll have fun. And I didn't know what to say. At first, I said, oh, well, all right, and I'll call you back, and hung up.

And then I went, what would I do? Would I do this? Would I be adventurous enough to actually go do this? Did I even know what he was asking of me or what it implied? I don't think I did. I was only 16, and so I probably didn't know all that he may have had in mind, above and beyond dinner and maybe a glass of wine.

But another kind of girl would have done that. And I know girls who did do those sorts of things and who were brave enough or-- I don't know if brave is the right word, but who actually did do those kinds of things and had those kinds of adventures and didn't think twice about it. Frankie would have done that and would have not only gone out with him, but probably would have got some extremely expensive jewelry and some good clothes.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Sure. She would have used the situation to her advantage.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Completely. But I didn't do that. I called him back and said, I don't think I can do this, and didn't go off with him. But I always remembered that moment of being approached and feeling, on the one hand, vulnerable and pray to an older man's advances, and on the other hand, a treasure that might be wanted by someone who was a complete stranger, who didn't know me and just saw me and thought, well, this would be nice.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, yeah. And of course, that's what May sees, too, in the older man in your novel Smithereens. Of course, it all kind of comes crashing down. But there's a good lesson in it for me.

SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK: Well, I think it does less crashing down than blowing up. Well, kind of all goes to pieces, but I think that-- there's a part of me that thinks that may be on a larger scale necessary, that that blowing up of the old world, of her old past, the hidden, the things that weren't talked about, bringing it all out into the open really. And I think that May would say this, that it allowed her to be a whole person.

Rather than being good all the time and doing what she's meant to do, she's allowed to be herself and be a complete woman and a complete person and what she says drawn to the outstanding and destined for something great. Whether that greatness is just an ordinary life, still, she's a whole woman, and not just her father's daughter and an invisible girl. And so she's grateful to Frankie for that.

MELANIE SUMMERS: Susan Taylor Chehak, talking with the FM news station's Paula Schroeder. Her new novel, Smithereens, is published by Doubleday.

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GARRISON KEILLOR: Hello. This is Garrison Keillor. You know there are some people who live in Minnesota who know nothing whatsoever about it. Don't know where the Saint Croix River winds up. Don't know who Prince Roger Nelson was or where Lindbergh was born or where Biwabik is.

For their benefit, we'll be conducting the second annual Do You Know Minnesota Quiz, August 28 at noon live from the Minnesota Public Radio booth at the Minnesota State Fair. Join us August 28, Monday at noon.

MELANIE SUMMERS: You can find the Minnesota Public Radio booth on the corner of Judson and Nelson. And if you can't join us in person, be sure to tune in to the FM news station, KNOW-FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities for that special program next Monday at noon. In the forecast today, very nice across the state. Mostly sunny skies, highs ranging from 75 the Arrowhead to 87 in the far Southwest.

A newly identified disease carried by the same tick that causes Lyme disease is being detected in a growing number of states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, and Massachusetts. Lyme disease, which causes chronic fatigue and aching pain, is bad enough, but this new disease can be fatal. National Public Radio's Patricia Neighmond reports.

PATRICIA NEIGHMOND: The disease is called ehrlichiosis. Its symptoms are initially similar to Lyme disease, high fever, muscle and joint pain, chills, sometimes nausea and vomiting, and, says Microbiologist Jacqueline Dawson with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, very severe headaches.

JACQUELINE DAWSON: Some individuals who have had this disease say that they feel like they got hit in the head with a baseball bat. So it's often quite severe headache, not just your normal everyday headache. And this fever will not go away. It's a persistent fever. The severity of the infection can lead to renal failure, pulmonary complications, potentially coma--

PATRICIA NEIGHMOND: And in some cases, death. So far, four people are known to have died from the disease. Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. James Bakken, who practices at the Duluth clinic in Minnesota, saw the first case of ehrlichiosis five years ago.

JAMES BAKKEN: I remember it very well because I did not make the correct diagnosis initially, and it had very dire consequences for the patient.

PATRICIA NEIGHMOND: The patient was an 80-year-old man who told doctors he had been bitten by a tick.

James Bakken: But he didn't behave like a patient would with Lyme disease. His illness picture was way too active. He was very ill. And because of all his different organ systems failing, he ended up actually dying.

PATRICIA NEIGHMOND: So far, health officials estimate over 60 cases of ehrlichiosis have been confirmed in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, and Massachusetts. There are suspected cases in California, Florida, and Maryland. The disease is caused by a bacteria carried by ticks, two different kinds of ticks, the small brown tick that carries Lyme disease and looks like a freckle and a large brown tick with a white spot in the middle of its back.

Both ticks feed on animals, mostly the white-tailed deer. And the number of deer, says Microbiologist Dawson, has increased dramatically over the past few years.

DAWSON: Humans are incidental hosts, which basically means we get in the way. We're out there. We're in the woods. We're hiking, et cetera. But we're not the main target for these diseases. Ticks will feed on a lot of different things from white-tailed deer to, in some cases, rodents. We just get there where the tick is looking for a blood meal, and we happen to get in the way and get fed upon.

PATRICIA NEIGHMOND: In fact, a recent study by Dawson and colleagues at the CDC found a far higher risk of infection by ticks among people living in a retirement community next to a golf course bordered by a wooded area. Those especially vulnerable, says Dawson, were people who lost a lot of golf balls and ventured into the woods to retrieve them. So if you're going to be in a wooded area, Dawson says take standard anti tick precaution.

DAWSON: Wear light-colored clothing. It's much easier to see a tick on a piece of light-colored clothing rather than dark-colored clothing. One of the recommendations is to tuck your pants into your socks. I realize most people aren't even wearing pants on a golf course.

But the best thing you can do is really wear insect repellent, but also to do a check, do a complete body check. The sooner, the better. The sooner ticks are removed, the less likely they are to transmit the disease.

PATRICIA NEIGHMOND: And don't remove ticks with fingers, Dawson says. That can squish them. And if you have cuts or abrasions on your skin, can cause infection that way. Forget the old suggestions about burning, freezing, or drowning ticks in petroleum jelly. Finely pointed tweezers, says Dawson, are the best bet.

Dawson adds that people shouldn't panic if they get a tick bite. Not all ticks are infected. In fact, most aren't. But if you do get a tick bite, she says, remove the tick, watch for symptoms. And if they occur, get to a doctor quickly. I'm Patricia Neighmond, reporting.

MELANIE SUMMERS: You're listening to Midmorning on the FM news station. I'm Melanie Sommer, sitting in for Paula Schroeder seven minutes before 11 o'clock.

SPEAKER: On the next Midday, another presidential candidate? Publishing tycoon Malcolm Forbes Jr. is hinting he may be interested in seeking the Republican nomination for president. You can hear him and his assessment of the country's economy on the next Midday.

Midday begins at 11:00 with the summary of the latest news. Then at noon, it's Malcolm Forbes Jr. on what's next for the economy. Midday on the FM news station, KNOW-FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities.

MELANIE SUMMERS: And during the 11 o'clock hour of Midday today, Gary Eichten will be talking with Marshall Cargill of Computer Corp about Windows 95 and with Saint Paul businessman John Manilow about a survey that shows Saint Paul residents think their city is on the right track. Now, it's time for Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor.

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GARRISON KEILLOR: And here is the Writer's Almanac for Monday. It's the 21st of August, 1995. The Wyoming State Fair begins today in Douglas, Wyoming. It's the anniversary of the founding of the American Bar Association in Sarasota, New York, 1878.

It's the anniversary of Nat Turner's rebellion down in the Tidewater section of Virginia, Southampton County, 1831, Nat Turner and six other slaves attacked and killed the owner of the plantation and the owner's family. They gathered about 75 other slaves together with them and went out and killed about 60 white people. He was captured.

It's the birthday of a famous American newspaper and magazine publisher, Frank Munsey, born in 1854. He bought the New York Sun, the evening telegram, started magazines, and so forth. O. Henry wrote for Frank Munsey. He owed Munsey several stories.

And Munsey told him he was going to send O. Henry no more advances until the writer would tell Munsey what he needed the money for. So O. Henry mailed him an envelope that contained one long blonde hair. And Frank Munsey sent him another advance.

The Lincoln-Douglas debates took place in Illinois. The first one was on this day back in 1858. The Republican, Abraham Lincoln, running for the Senate against Stephen A. Douglas, Douglas defending slavery and Lincoln debating against it. The ironic point is that back in those days, senators were not elected by the people at large. They were elected by the state legislatures.

And so though Lincoln and Douglas were out speaking to the people, they were only trying to get the votes of some state legislators. Lincoln lost that election, but the Lincoln-Douglas debates made him famous around the country. William Basie was born in red bank, new Jersey, on this day in 1904, Count Basie.

He began his musical career as an accompanist on the vaudeville circuit. He was out in Kansas City, Missouri. He ran out of money, and he stayed there and formed his first big band in Kansas City. The poet X.J. Kennedy, born in Dover, New Jersey, on this day in 1929, author of some wonderful poems including "In a Prominent Bar in Secaucus One Day."

And it's the birthday of Wilton Chamberlain, Wilt the Stilt, born in Philadelphia in 1936, first player to score more than 4,000 points in a regular season NBA games. Here's a poem by John Updike entitled "Hoeing."

"I sometimes fear the younger generation will be deprived of the pleasures of hoeing.

There is no knowing how many souls have been formed by this simple exercise.

The dry Earth like a great scab breaks, revealing moist dark loam,

the pea roots home,

A fertile wound perpetually healing.

How neatly the green weeds go under.

The blade chops the Earth new.

Ignorant, the wise boy who has never performed this simple, stupid, and useful wonder."

"Hoeing," a poem by John Updike from his Telephone Poles and Other Poems published by Alfred A. Knopf and used here by permission on the Writer's Almanac, Tuesday, August 21. Made possible by Cowles magazines, publishers of American History, and other magazines. Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch.

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MELANIE SUMMERS: And that's our Midmorning for today. I'm Melanie Sommer, sitting in for Paula Schroeder here on the FM news station. We hope you'll tune in tomorrow. Coming up at 9 o'clock tomorrow, a discussion about Windows 95, Microsoft's newest software coming out this Thursday, getting more hype than you would believe.

We'll try to through some of that hype and give you some good advice about whether or not it's something that you should pursue. That's coming up tomorrow. In the meantime, stay tuned for Midday, here on the FM news station.

ANNOUNCER: On Mondays, All Things Considered, Dan Hofrenning's book In Washington But Not of It on religious lobbyists and American politics. It's All Things Considered every day at 4:00 on the FM news station, KNOW-FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities.

MELANIE SUMMERS: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. It's sunny and 78 degrees at the FM news station. KNOW-FM 91.1 Minneapolis, Saint Paul. Twin Cities' weather for today calls for mostly sunny skies with a high temperature around 85 degrees. Tonight will be clear with a low of 60. And tomorrow, partly sunny, highs in the mid-80s.

GARY EICHTEN: Good morning. It's 11 o'clock, and this is Midday on the FM news station. I'm Gary Eichten. In the news this morning, President Clinton vacationing in Wyoming is returning to Washington this week for ceremonies honoring three American diplomats killed in Bosnia over the weekend. The bodies of the diplomats are being returned to Washington today.

Hundreds of US troops are leaving the US today for military exercises in Kuwait. US officials say the exercises are designed as a Warning to Saddam Hussein. Israel has suspended talks with the PLO and implementing the Palestinian self-rule agreement, this after another suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Authorities say the forest fire in the BWCA has been brought under control. And a new poll gives Saint Paul Mayor Norm Coleman high marks, even though residents are less than enthusiastic about his plans to develop Saint Paul's riverfront. Those are some of the stories in the news today. Coming up over the noon hour, we'll hear from Malcolm Forbes Jr. He is the editor of Forbes Magazine. He says he may end up running for president this year.