The Life Vespa

Eric Dregni is professor of English, journalism, and Italian at Concordia University in St. Paul. His obsessions range from motor scooters, about which he has authored and co-authored five books, to futuristic jet packs to oversized fiberglass town monuments to Zamboni ice resurfacers. He’s turned his fixations into twenty books including Impossible Road Trip, Let’s Go Fishing, Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of our Fantastic Future, Weird Minnesota, Midwest Marvels, Ads That Put America on Wheels, and Let’s Go Bowling! Dregni worked in Italy for five years as a travel journalist and wrote about the experience in Never Trust a Thin Cook. In the summer, he is dean of the Italian Concordia Language Village, Lago del Bosco, in northern Minnesota, which also became a book:You’re Sending Me Where? He lives in Minneapolis.