How Fargo of You: True Stories from a Place Stranger than Fiction - Tapa blanda

"Five minutes into de Celle's astounding journey into Fargoism, I was having trouble believing the place he was describing really existed. By the last page, I was glad it did, and grateful a writer of his caliber gave me the tour." David Madrid, a journalist for The Arizona Republic and creator of fabulousfables.com "How Fargo of You made me laugh out loud with tears in my eyes! Marc de Celle gives the world an inside view seldom seen by outsiders..." Kerstin Kealy, Anchor, WDAY TV, Fargo "A funny, yet profound book with a remarkable surprise: It shows how America might succeed in the 21st century." Joel Barker, International consultant and bestselling author of Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future, The Star Thrower Story, Future Edge and others "A gifted writer reminds us of the remarkable people and stories that make America great." Senator Byron Dorgan "It often takes somebody from the outside looking in to show us how nice we have it. That's what Marc de Celle has done with How Fargo of You. The book captures why we Upper Midwesterners put up with the weather and the remoteness. But I don't think even we understood it completely until an outsider-turned-insider like Marc pointed it out to us." Ryan Bakken, Grand Forks Herald "This is the perfect book to share with anyone who has ever asked, 'Why do you live in Fargo?'" Madalyn Pezella, Village Family Magazine "You hear a lot about 'Midwestern values.' How Fargo of You explains what that means with heartwarming real examples. We often associate business and personal success with ruthlessness, but How Fargo of You shows that living by the 'Golden Rule' - treating others as you would like to be treated - creates prosperity. The Midwest is a great place to live and do business, in part because so many people show kindness in their interactions with others, whether during a chance meeting or an important business deal.

Memoir from Marc de Celle of his family's first five years in Fargo. Having always lived in either Arizona, California or Florida, Fargo was a big change -- but the biggest shock wasn't the climate, it was the culture. The locals frequently left de Celle speechless, until he finally figured out what to say: "Oh. How Fargo of You."

From the Introduction:

I had no burning desire to visit Fargo. But my wife, Charlene, had decided we were going. Her best friend Melody, who I liked very much and our kids adored, now lived in Fargo. So we came. It was the summer of 2001 and we were on vacation.

Our lives would never be the same.

Until then, all I knew of Fargo, other than the fact that my wife's best friend had moved here, was that a movie with dumb criminals and people talking in goofy accents had been titled after it. Oh, and it got really, really cold....

That was all I knew of Fargo.

So our first visit, nearly a quarter of a century later, held many pleasant surprises. No dumb criminals - in fact, about the lowest crime rate in the country. No goofy accents, don'cha know. Great weather (we came in June). And a much bigger surprise, as you'll read in Chapter One...