By GAIL ROSENBLUM, Minneapolis Star Tribune

MINNEAPOLIS - It was an ordinary angiogram in the cardiac cath lab at the University of Minnesota Medical Center. But there was nothing ordinary about the tall technologist scrubbing in as part of the medical team.

Eleanor Mondale hopes she'll feel well enough Saturday to attend a screening of "Fritz: The Walter Mondale Story."

The film is a gift to Minnesotans, who can feel terribly proud of their native son. Now 82, "Mr. Mondale," as he prefers to be called, never veered from public service, never compromised the greater good for personal gain.

A hunt for land confiscated by the Nazis started in Minnesota with two students using high-tech geographic mapping.
Now it is an international property dispute involving cryptic maps, deeds and farmland taken decades ago.

Elizabeth Brantley has developed a sudden midlife fear of strangers -- the kind walking through her office, unannounced, in suits.

Mike Pitts, 19, can't wait to get to Minneapolis for Thanksgiving, where he'll load up on stuffing (his favorite), pumpkin pie and lively conversation around the table. The only bummer for Pitts, a sophomore at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., is that two key elements of the holiday will be sorely missing: Mom and Dad.

Emma Holly has no trouble explaining the "Twilight" phenomenon or, more specifically, why Stephenie Meyers' vampire-book series is turning adolescent girls across America into hysterical, shrieking balls of putty."It's the bad-boy fantasy," says Holly, the Minneapolis-based creator of the "Midnight" vampire trilogy.

Mary Ann Hinnerichs, 76, spends most days caring for Howard, 75, her husband of 56 years. Last July, Howard had triple-bypass surgery and now, taking 15 steps "is a lot for him," she says. They watch what they eat ("no meat, no dairy") and enjoy the company of their six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Dominique Hines has been following media coverage of 17-year-old Bristol Palin's pregnancy with great interest. Dominique, 16, is the single mother of a 3-month-old son, Da'Marion. She's also a high-school student with big dreams.