Purple Rain

Yesterday I was driving from Madison to Des Moines and Purple Rain by Prince came on the radio. They love Prince out here. Anyway, I was reminded about a specifically bazaar event that occurred in the summer of 2001. I had been living in St. Paul with my sister Samara for the summer and my father came out in August to help us both move, Samara to Keene, NH, and myself to RISD for my senior year. Everything would have been normal except my father showed up with his hair dyed bright purple. My father was 61 at the time. In a typical manner, my father simply explained that he had "run into some teenage ruffians in Indiana" friends of a cousin's kid, who had asked to dye his hair, and he said yes.

We were all very proud of my father's brilliant purple hair. It was thrill for all of us, there were confused youngon's "mommy, that man has poo-poo hayah", there were photo ops...but it got better there was Prince...

The day after my dad arrived in town we went to downtown Saint Paul to go the the local children's science museum to see an exhibit on germs. My father went to find a parking space while Samara and I idled outside of the museum. After a considerable amount of time, our father returned and we asked him why the delay.

As it turns out, Prince, a native of Minneapolis, and purple enthusiast was in town for a concert. As my father was returning from the car, he was stopped my a news crew, and they, probably mistaking him for a Prince fan, requested that he sing Purple Rain for the camera. My father then responded with "Who's Prince?". Eventually they convinced him to just "sing after them". So that's how my father ended up on the Minneapolis evening news, with bright purple hair, singing Purple Rain for all the world to see.