Former city council member had joked with his wife to 'put a cell phone in my casket. If the line is busy, delay the funeral.'
By Tad Vezner and Dave Orrick
Pioneer Press
Updated: 02/19/2010
Ron "The Bull" Maddox boasted he'd held more than half the jobs on the planet, from pitching semi-pro baseball to driving a tow truck to selling insurance. For a time, he even tried politics.
In the end, he became St. Paul's brawling, obstreperous defender — owning half a dozen St. Paul bars, serving a brief, stormy stint as city council president and eventually falling into his niche as the Taste of Minnesota's frontman.
"Everything I do is sex, politics, sports and religion. Life is built around that," Maddox said a few years ago. He died Friday at the age of 72.
Even before he entered politics in 1978, he would rail against those who talked St. Paul down. He delivered verbal pummelings to anyone who dared badmouth his "neighborhood city," which he found during a midlife career move, fell in love with and relentlessly tried to energize.
Carrying a bat emblazoned with fighting words — "You agree with me, don't you?" — Maddox often patrolled the Taste festival grounds for troublemakers. He'd gotten practice on St. Paul's downtown streets, racking up 54 citizen arrests of panhandlers, prostitutes or anyone who might detract from the city's image.
His tough street-kid persona got its start in an industrial Detroit suburb.
Not Afraid To Bump Heads
Born Aug. 25, 1937, in Hazel Park, Mich. — right off the Chrysler Freeway — as Anthony Antonelli, Maddox was given up for adoption by his parents, an unwed vaudeville dance team. His second mother died of pneumonia after rescuing Maddox from their burning house in the middle of winter.
Maddox spoke of having two fathers and four mothers, "and you know, I'm grateful, because I got love from all of them" — but he noted his second father, a union shop steward, worked long hours and was seen rarely. In a 1980 Pioneer Press article, his old Center Line High School football coach, Bill Chmelko, called Maddox quick, intelligent, aggressive and "not afraid to so-called bump heads. He got recognition from us. He got no recognition at home."
After a stint in the Air Force and a two-year commerce degree from South Macomb College, Maddox went to work for Wayne National Life Insurance Co. in Detroit. In time, he became vice president and met board member (and Detroit Tiger Outfielder and Hall of Famer) Al Kaline, who supplied him with his bat while Maddox pitched during batting practice.
In 1963, he was elected trustee of the then-township of Sterling Heights. He was 25.
Reporters and politicians at the time described him as someone who "yelled and pounded his desk, who liked nothing better than a good verbal confrontation with a packed crowd watching." At least once, he challenged a board member to a fistfight.
Maddox said at the time he was unhappy, and after his wife filed for divorce, he moved to Minnesota in 1966 as Wayne National's district manager.
'Invest In St. Paul'
Life in Minnesota was an adjustment. "They taught me a different way of life. They took me fishing — hell, I'd never been fishing in my life," he said later in an interview.
After Wayne National experienced problems, Maddox became an independent agent but tired of "the rat race," as he put it. Perhaps the bar trade would be more fulfilling.
In 1970, he bought his first bar — Denny's Loft on University Avenue — followed by several others. Finally, in 1974, he purchased his best-known establishment, the Blue Chip, at 369 Cedar St.
Around that same time, Maddox began racking up a string of "citizens arrests." In 1976, he turned in a woman who approached him downtown for a $40 "date." He tried to arrest a "meter maid" tagging cars by his bar for parking her motorized tricycle "illegally." There were panhandlers, pimps, more prostitutes — anyone Maddox thought lent the city a bad name.
As recently as last year, he boasted a total of 54 arrests, all but one of which stuck, he said.
Less than 10 years after arriving in St. Paul, Maddox had become the unofficial yet undisputed booster of its downtown — a title that helped get him elected to city council. During the race, he bought a campaign billboard smack in the center of Minneapolis.
"Invest in St. Paul," read the words beside Maddox's smiling face.
In a contentious race, he railed against established politicians and championed the small businessman, whom he said had taken a beating.
"St. Paul City Council candidate Ron Maddox said Thursday a lie detector test has shown he made no threats on council member Rosalie Butler's life," one Pioneer Press article began.
A Classic St. Paul Character
But in the end, in 1978 — after serving as president of the downtown district council, the visitors and convention bureau and the downtown community development committee — Maddox was seated. Within a year, he vowed to retire his nickname, "The Bull," which he prominently displayed on his license plate.
Fellow council members at the time said "The Bull" never retired, calling him a contentious publicity hound.
After a perceived snub by then-Chamber of Commerce executive vice president Amos Martin, he proclaimed, "The establishment in this town figures you've got to have gone to Cretin or have got to gone to St. Thomas. Street kids are just not recognized."
But in 1980, he was elected council president on a 4-3 vote. That year, he sold the debt-laden Blue Chip a second and final time.
"Ron is just one of those classic St. Paul characters. And to be one, you kind of have to have some controversy," said bar owner Dan O'Gara. "Although he's not from here, he's the epitome of the city."
Supporters and opponents alike portrayed Maddox as a Chicago-style politician inflicted on St. Paul's frequently flaccid council. Even his critics admitted he was capable of fierce loyalty — at times to his own detriment.
"I have not been satisfied in many instances that Ron recognized the difference between personal loyalty and loyalty to the office, to the oath you take," then-Mayor George Latimer said.
Latimer remembered this week: "Even when he was older and in bad health, he wasn't afraid to go to the mat and get physical with somebody. I made sure to make my differences with Ron on a very cerebral level."
Downtown St. Paul building owner and friend John Manillo recalled how in his bar-owner days Maddox eliminated the competition for a lease he wanted to sign.
One evening, Maddox invited his rival to one of his bars, and the next day he called Manillo, who asked, "How'd it go?"
"I got a broken cheek and a black eye and a few stitches," Maddox said. Manillo rushed to see Maddox, whose face was properly busted up.
"What happened?" Manillo asked.
"You should see the other guy," Maddox replied. "He came at me with a pool cue, so I had no choice. ... Now, let's go sign that lease."
The opposition would offer no further argument.
Stepping Up, Stepping On Toes
Maddox was particularly vocal about police control of rock concerts and supported ordinances to regulate behavior in skyways. He also backed esoteric ordinances, including one that outlawed Space Invaders video games in grocery stores, and floated the idea of an indoor dogtrack downtown.
Tim Macke, former president of Liberty State Bank at Selby and Snelling avenues, remembered the gridlock he encountered trying to get his corner remodeled — until Maddox got involved.
"He just stepped in, and he just went past everybody. We started doing things before we even had approval. Boy, away we went," Macke said. "I'll tell you what he did: He brought people together. He stepped on people's toes, yes, but he just got it done."
In 1981, Maddox resigned as council president following weeks of political intrigue by council members who chafed at his style. In 1982, he announced he would not run for a third term and instead bought a lawn-mower repair shop in Highland Park. His pride: an over-sized riding snow blower with a speaker system behind the seat. He used it to plow the neighborhood.
"He always said, the best thing you can do is just shovel people's walks," Macke said.
After running unsuccessfully for Ramsey County commissioner — a race in which a glass of beer at O'Gara's Bar & Grill somehow ended up in the lap of a union official who was talking to Maddox about a denied endorsement — Maddox opted for a job in public relations.
Best Of Ron Maddox
With the Taste of Minnesota, Maddox's flair for publicity found a home.
"It was the best of Ron Maddox," Latimer said. "It took energy, it took promotion, it took shoe leather and it took chutzpah, and Ron had all those."
It was around 1979 that Maddox hatched the idea for what would become not only Minnesota's second-largest festival (behind the State Fair) but also, as Maddox incessantly emphasized, "the largest festival between Chicago and California."
Latimer allowed his chief of staff, Dick Broeker, and Maddox to move on the idea of a public festival around Independence Day.
"Everybody thought we were nuts," Maddox recalled in an interview several years ago, relating one of the many stories he often retold. And retold.
"Everybody told us, 'Nobody's around on the Fourth. Everyone goes to their cabins on the lake.' It took them one year to discover not everyone owns a cabin."
Broeker and Maddox traveled to Chicago to see how large festivals were promoted and financed. "We just copied what they did," Maddox recalled.
Thus was born the Taste of Minnesota, which began in 1982 and has been held annually since. Ownership has changed, but Maddox didn't leave until last year, setting up in a Payne Avenue storefront to tirelessly promote the Harriet Island festival year-round.
Scouts from the suburbs sometimes approached him, inquiring whether the Taste wouldn't be better off in their open, airy locales. He never gave in; his attitude toward the suburbs ranged from dislike to downright disdain. He frequently raged about how they were destroying St. Paul's core.
"St. Paul is a neighborhood city. It's not a plastic city. There's more shopping malls surrounding these two cities than anywhere else in the country," he said two years ago.
Maddox's health problems began a year after he was elected to council. He was hospitalized in 1979 for an arterial spasm. A few years later, he was diagnosed with diabetes; later, he underwent brain surgery for a tumor, and in the mid-1990s he was badly banged up in a car accident. At last count, he had suffered eight strokes.
A few years ago, he laid out some rules for his funeral to his wife, Linda.
No. 1: Put a charged cell phone in his casket. If the line is busy, delay the burial.
And if it ever does happen, charge admission.
"A lot of people will pay, because they want to make sure I'm dead," he said.
Funeral arrangements were in the works on Friday.
Tad Vezner can be reached at 651-228-5461.
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