Photo: Screenshot from AP website.
Driving into into the town of Luverne, Minnesota (pop. 4,946) on the Fourth of July, 2026 — the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence — an observant visitor might have noticed a 66-foot tall nutcracker at 924 South Kniss Avenue, decked out to resemble a nutcracker version of Uncle Sam.
Not a true “nutcracker” of course. The towering statue will never be able to crack a nut. How the hell would you ever reach the mouth, to crack a nut? It’s like 50 feet up in the air.
You would need a goddamn crane.
Reportedly, the statue cost about $600,000, and final assembly — placement of the head and red-and-white striped hat — was completed in time for a ribbon-cutting on June 18, adjacent to a quirky rock shop called ‘Those Blasted Things.’
Hundreds of people gathered for the ribbon cutting, when the nutcracker’s name and exact height were revealed to the crowd.
“Verne, the Patriot”. Obviously, a play on the town’s name: Luverne.
The feet had been standing there on South Kniss Avenue for a year, but the idea had been kicked around for a decade, inspired by local resident Betty Mann, age 96, who — back when she was president of the town’s historical society — donated her collection of 2,500 nutcrackers to the local historical museum.
Other residents began donating nutcrackers, and the museum collection has ballooned to 7,554 — no two the same. So, there’s more nutcrackers in Luverne than residents. And now, what might be the world’s tallest (and most patriotic) nutcracker, about twice the height of the previous 33-foot-tall nutcracker in Neuhausen, Germany that Guinness World Records had ranked as the largest.
That’s one thing about America. We’re not only patriotic, but we know how to build big, useless things that can attract tourists.
Thinking back on my own childhood, my mother also had a fondness for nutcrackers, although her collection never grew beyond about five of them. She brought them out at Christmas time, which aligned with a family tradition of cracking and eating nuts during the holiday.
But we never actually used any of my mom’s nutcrackers to crack the nuts, even though I assumed — naïvely — that the practical reason for owning a nutcracker was to crack nuts.
Turns out, the real reason for having a nutcracker collection was simply so you could say you have a nutcracker collection.
And the real reason for having a 66-foot tall nutcracker is so you can say you have a 66-foot tall nutcracker.
While researching the “Verne, the Patriot” story last weekend, I found myself wondering why nutcrackers are always ‘male’. And typically, dressed as military officers, or kings, or religious leaders. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a nutcracker that looked like a woman, even though women has historically been known to crack nuts, on occasion.
In fact, although I don’t have any data to support my assertion, I would be willing to bet money that most of the nuts cracked in human history were cracked by women.
Not that anyone is likely to take that bet. But it’s out there, in case any of my readers like to make bets.
The world’s most famous nutcracker is, of course, The Nutcracker from the ballet called (appropriately enough) ‘The Nutcracker’. In that ballet (Tchaikovsky’s Op. 71, first performed in 1892) a nutcracker in military garb comes to life on Christmas eve and goes into battle against the evil Mouse King and his army.
This Nutcracker had been given to an innocent girl named Marie, as a Christmas gift.
In that story, the Nutcracker was secretly a young man who had been transformed into a nutcracker as the result of a curse cast by the Mouse Queen, mother of the evil Mouse King. Young Marie — by swearing that she would love him in spite of his looks — breaks the curse and makes him human again. He asks her to marry him, and she accepts… and in a year and a day, he takes her away to the doll kingdom, where she is crowned queen.
I have no doubt “Verne, the Patriot” would be able to defeat any Mouse King that comes along. Of that, we can feel assured. He has the full might of the U.S. government behind him.
I just wish he could re-open the Strait of Hormuz.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.