"Give me the child until he is 7, and I’ll show you the man," the saying goes. And if that man holds public office, his childhood experiences can steer policy — a President Proust might make madeleine cookies mandatory.

The latest local example: Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s boyhood fondness for gurgling public water fountains led to a $500,000 city project for 10 new artist-designed drinking fountains. And that follows the announcement of a $180,000 publicity campaign touting the city’s (currently rank) water. Perhaps Rybak’s still thirsty from two years ago, when an onion ring obsession from his youth informed his support for a new Porky’s drive-through restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis over neighbors’ objections and zoning prohibitions.

A decade ago, Gov. Arne Carlson had a dream of building state boarding schools, prompted by his experience escaping a dead-end New York City immigrant upbringing via a scholarship to an elite East Coast boarding school. The Legislature chipped in $12 million to make Carlson’s wish come true, but the dream soon faded as Synergy Academy in Minneapolis closed after a brief existence, and another school proposed for Gilbert, Minn., was turned down by the town.

Carlson’s successor, Jesse Ventura, seemed to short-circuit the nostalgia-policy connection, acting on his boyish desires in real time — slashing state fees on jet skis, for example. (He owned personal watercraft.) Alas, Ventura hasn’t yet achieved his stated ambition to be reborn as double-D bra, or we might learn whether an article of lingerie could best Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken in the race for U.S. Senate.