In the end he was a Minnesotan, reminding us in death, as he did in life, what that can mean, if we try.
The son of a farmer-preacher, Walter Mondale worked hard, played by the rules and accomplished much, not least learning that passing a few hours or even a few days in a boat, fishing rod in hand, hoping for a bite, is time well spent, especially when surrounded by good friends.
Jimmy Carter was a fisherman, still is, and perhaps in 1976 when he selected "Fritz" to be his vice presidential candidate, he saw in Mondale a kindred spirit whose angler temperament might come in handy in a pinch.
"Blessing upon all who hate contention and love quietness and virtue and angling," the intrepid angler-philosopher Izaak Walton penned centuries ago, and Mondale, who died in his Minneapolis home Monday at age 93, earned that blessing and many others during his long life.
Born in 1928 in Ceylon, Minn., in Martin County, and later moving with his family to Heron Lake and then to Elmore in Faribault County, Mondale hunted ducks and pheasants as a boy.
These were lean times, and Mondale's father, Theodore Sigvaard Mondale, had by then swapped his farmer's leathered hands for life in a Methodist pulpit, joining Mondale's mother, Claribel Cowan Mondale, a part-time piano teacher, to raise their young family.
The surprise to many who viewed Mondale from afar during his political career as Minnesota attorney general, U.S. senator, vice president of the United States, Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. ambassador to Japan was that his recreation of choice was fishing.
Better known were his conservation efforts, particularly the landmark legislation he and Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson authored establishing the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which initially among a handful of other rivers protected 230 miles of the St. Croix and its primary tributary, the Namekagon — and now protects 12,700 miles of 209 U.S. waterways.