Oh, what the tourists must have thought!


Virginia, the only Iron Range city named for the British monarchy, is nicknamed the “Queen City.” The water tower reads (verbatim): VIRGINIA “QUEEN CITY”

Seeing this water tower is a little like seeing a gun hanging on the wall in a Chekhov play. You know that at one point the gun must fire, or in this case that a sweaty teenager struggling with his latent homosexuality will shimmy up the tower and vandalize it in an oh-too-obvious way (from today’s Mesabi Daily News).

Vandalism is bad and this sure isn’t a ringing sign of social tolerance on the Iron Range, but can I point out one amusing detail about this story? No one knows when this was done. It might have been up there for a couple days. Look up, everyone!


5 responses to “Oh, what the tourists must have thought!”

  1. Ya know, in most places, painting the phrase “Queen City” on the water tower would be newsworthy as homosexually-themed vandalism. This display was just way too obvious. -1 point for the perpetrator.

    Anyone else find themselves recalling Jeff Foxworthy? (“If you’ve ever climbed a water tower with a bucket of whitewash to reclaim your sister’s honor…”)

  2. Around my neck of the fields people usually stick to the City Limits signs. A couple of my favorites:

    Litchfield to “Bitchfield”

    Atwater had a Tw added in front of it once

    Dassel was greened out to just “ass”

    I don’t know why, but whenever I see it, no matter how politically incorrect, or nubile, I still laugh hard.

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