Story Archive

Got the Monkey Off His Back

Mark Dayton, the governor of Minnesota, grew up in a retail family: in 1902, his great grandfather founded Dayton’s department store chain in Minneapolis, which eventually morphed into Target. The original store’s downtown building is being refurbished, and something interesting was found in the ceiling. “Does anyone know how a monkey would have ended up in the rafters of an urban department store and remain there undisturbed for probably decades?” asked “Old Minneapolis” on Facebook. Regan Murphy, the mayor of Robbinsdale, knew: “My dad once stole a monkey from a Dayton’s display back in the ’60s,” he posted on Twitter. “He and his buddy Tom skipped school and took a bus downtown, and saw the monkey in a cage or some kind of display.” He returned the animal, but just let it loose in the store; it climbed into the ceiling, not to be found for 50 years. (RC/Minneapolis Star Tribune) ...Surely no one is surprised to hear of a politician with a skeleton in his closet.