Entering the third year of a deadly pandemic may have some Minnesotans wondering how things could possibly be worse. The final months of 1918 provide a sobering answer.

An influenza pandemic began ravaging the state in the fall of that year — ultimately killing more than 10,000 Minnesotans. Meanwhile, young men were being sent off to a bloody world war overseas and wildfires were destroying entire cities in northern Minnesota.

Reader Sarah Rasmussen moved into a 1917 Minneapolis home just before COVID-19 and realized they were not the first family to endure a pandemic within its walls. She wondered what life was like for those people a century ago.

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Months after a global pandemic shut down his business and days after arsonists set his warehouse ablaze, Chris Montana has one question: Is this all worth it? The fires, the flooding, the looting after George Floyd's death?

"I don't know if it is or not. But I think there is an opportunity for it to be. And when I think of it that way, I don't know if I care if Du Nord burns down to the foundation."

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In November, an obscure, now suspended Twitter account started a trend with the tweet:

“There’s only ONE MONTH left in the decade. What have you accomplished?”

Responses varied from sincere to sarcastic, self-congratulatory to self-pitying, emotionally raw to professional and polished. Just as quickly, a new meme took hold — side-by-side comparison of selfies from 2010 and 2019! — and everyone moved on. Left behind were those 280-character traces of what people remembered from the previous 10 years: what stirred and shook them, what tested them and what made them proud.

We asked these Minnesotans to look back at what they’ve done and what they’ve weathered since 2010.

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Standing on the corner of Cedar and Exchange streets, eyes tracing up the Beaux Arts-style columns of the historic Exchange Building, you’d be as likely to conjure an image of nuns roller skating on the roof as you would a giraffe strolling down the street.

Indeed, habited sisters on skates once glided around up there, gazing out at the city.

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An essential guide to the beers, ciders and spirits Up North.

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Stephanie Oyen is not Elizabeth Warren.

But try telling that to a crowd of fans gathered to see the U.S. senator and 2020 presidential candidate at a town hall at Macalester College on Monday evening.

Oyen arrived at the rally wearing a blue blazer and clear glasses — her Elizabeth Warren costume from Halloween — as a lark.

“I thought it would get some giggles,” said the Edina resident. “Then people started yelling, ‘Senator Warren!’ People were clapping and running up to me to take photos. I kept saying ‘I’m not her!’ but I looked up and hundreds of people were staring at me.”

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A triumphant debut is a tough act to follow. Harder still when you suggested that debut would serve as your final bow.

Hannah Gadsby, relatively unknown in the United States before her groundbreaking Netflix special “Nanette” aired last year, managed to overcome both hurdles Wednesday night in the first of three Minneapolis shows at Pantages Theatre. Less fueled by the raw anger of “Nanette,” but still guided by a focused rage, her second effort, “Douglas,” offered fans more of Gadsby’s singular insight, humor and an answer to one pressing question: Did she mean it when she said she was quitting comedy?

No, said the tickets in our hands. But then why had she insisted throughout “Nanette” that she had to stop?

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A small restaurant can bring out the best in a kitchen: a clear focus, a menu that bursts with the creativity of space constraints.

But a wee dining room can bring out the worst in us: The harder it is to get seated, the harder it is to maintain the placid mask of Minnesota Nice. Nabbing a table gives us the same rush as if we’d surged ahead in a race for a parking space or shoved our way into a departing elevator and watched the doors shut on the stragglers behind us. No need to be so cutthroat about it; a little planning separates our better and worse selves. Click a few buttons, reserve a couple weeks in advance, and claim a spot at Hyacinth, the 40-seat sliver of a restaurant on Grand Avenue in St. Paul.

Hyacinth’s size does give it the air of rarity. Aside from the banquette seating that lines the eastern wall, there are only a handful of tables and eight unreserved bar seats to choose from. Conversation that doesn’t build to a yelling match is an easy proposition in a small space such as this; low but sufficient lighting and unfussy decor make it ideal for a date.

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Photos by Alma Guzman.

Neil Young is not taking requests.

That didn’t stop anyone at Pantages Theatre Saturday night from yawping song titles stageward, praying from their lips to Neil’s guitar. Nor did Young appear bothered; his fans have been doing this forever.

“I love it when you ask me for those old songs and everything,” Young says in the intro to his 2018 Songs for Judy album, taken from an archival recording of his 1976 U.S. tour. “But it’s funny ‘cause what keeps you alive is what kills you, you know. Too much of the old shit, you know, uh, goodnight.”

The tracks on Songs for Judy are now the old shit themselves. Though Young had only just turned 31, he’d been making music for a full decade by then—long enough to have old shit—and by 2018, the songs he played that night, some of them new at the time, were among the many reasons we’d all turned out for this solo performance, the first of four such Minneapolis shows over the next week.

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Photos by Lucy Hawthorne.

The classic seafood boil stays rigidly within its flavor bounds: golden melted butter, the mild sweetness of sea meat, and Old Bay seasoning (Zatarain’s if you’re in the South).

For the menu at Grand Catch in St. Paul, former Saffron chef Sameh Wadi has bypassed that tradition. Instead, at this industrial-chic nook in the Mac-Groveland neighborhood, where a winky neon crab on the wall signals good vibes, Wadi has tapped into an emerging trend of Viet Cajun fusion cuisine, slinging big platters of garlic butter-slicked crustaceans and certifiably tongue-singeing spices.

It’s been a big year for Viet Cajun food, a fusion of Vietnamese and Cajun culinary traditions that has bubbled up from the Houston, Texas melting pot. Though the cuisine has been growing in popularity there for some years, it abruptly entered the foodie lexicon in early 2018, after getting a signal boost from David Chang’s Ugly Delicious series on Netflix.

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Photos by Alma Guzman.

In the east, a Great Bagel War rages.

The New York bagel is the prototype. Boiled and then baked in a steamy hot oven, they come out fat and glossy, golden like a roasted chicken. The exterior is chewy, the interior is soft, and the surface is wide and substantial enough to hold up a heaping schmear of cream cheese and a deli case of toppings. In Montreal, the underdog takes a smaller, denser form. This interpretation has a larger hole in the center, and is boiled in honey water and finished in a wood-fired oven. You won’t find many of them sliced and served as sandwiches; they’re more likely torn and dipped into spreads.

To which side do we, humble Minnesotans, pledge our allegiance? We mostly butt out, on account of hating conflict and loving carbs unconditionally. But with Meyvn, the Lake Street deli/bar/bagel shop from Saint Dinette’s Tim Niver, Laurel Elm, and chef Adam Eaton, we might have stumbled into a hybrid that keeps us comfortably in the middle.

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Photos by Alma Guzman.

We don't always have the option to customize furniture to fit our spaces.

But for Elizabeth Penrod, a family interest in carpentry has filled her home with special pieces – some tailormade for function and some perfected and polished to hand down for generations to come. The result is a house that brims with history and shared memories.

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Photos by Lucy Hawthorne.