Hunters

The recent issue of Newsweek magazine carried an article about hunting titled "The Elusive Hunter." The author wrote that the number of hunting license holders has decreased by two million hunters over the last 20 years in the face of substantial population growth. He gave several reasons for the decline in the number of hunters: less hunting land - the growth of urban America removes acreage, more restrictions - landholders are charging for access or hunters are outright buying land, and more couch potatoes - home entertainment devices such as video games create vicarious thrills for younger people. To add to the mix, groups such as PETA and the Humane Society bring extra pressure.

I am not a hunter but am always glad to see the deer population thinned by hunting. I have had the experience of colliding with a deer that put a nice dent in the hood of my car. I was lucky since more serious accidents than that occur frequently. I find little to argue about in the article. It's easy to witness urban sprawl, land being reserved by people with money, and couch potatoes gaining weight.

The last time I tried to shoot a rifle, the cataract in my eye stood between the sights of the gun and the prairie dog. They weren't in much danger and were probably amused to hear the bullets whizzing overhead. In my teens I owned a Model 97 Winchester shotgun, but Ma wouldn't fix the game it hit. When elk hunting in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, I got stuck carrying out a quarter of meat belonging to someone else.

Hunting passed from being a necessity to being a luxury: the thicker the wallet, the better the hunting, it seems. I live in the potato couch category, and as long as someone else thins the deer population, I'm okay with that.

Pet Peeve

In a short time something has become a pet peeve with me - cell phones. The damn things ring all over the place at anytime: church, library, business places, traffic, etc. I don't think anyone likes being drawn into another person's often petty business when they are trying to concentrate on their own. Yesterday I encountered two traffic situations because of them. One man was concentrating on his call, drove too slowly, and held up a whole string of cars behind him. Another darted across the street to enter the opposite lane and blocked my lane while he stopped for an opening. Here is where I laid on my horn in disgust.

I'm taken back to the time when telephones weren't such an oppressive gadget. One phone per home was the standard. We were on a party line with several others. To reminisce I still remember our number - 5542. It rang with our assigned signal of three shorts. "Rubbernecks" knew and recognized everyone's ring and could pick up the receiver to listen in on conversations. We were not slaves to the phones. Why, you could even leave home and not hear a phone ring.

Maybe there are enough emergency situations or urgent business matters that justify all of these contraptions, and I know the rush and push of society moving forward will continue to bring out inventions like these. Since I do not wish to dig a hole and escape from the world just yet, I guess I'll have to put up with it all.

Riding the Rails

Something about a family gathered around a table inspires good talk and reminiscing. So it was on Thanksgiving Day. One story told by my father-in-law needs to be passed on to his young descendants. I've forgotten why but the subject of railroads and hoboes came up. Adam related a story of the time he hoboed, too. Stories of this kind usually harken back to the Depression with its hard times and was the case in his tale. He and others jumped on a freight train headed to Fargo where the Red River Valley and its hoped for potato-picking wages drew them. My ears perked up when he talked about the bull who would come to kick them off at layovers. I remember from my reading of history that many of these railroad employees carried clubs and used strongarm tactics to clear a train of vagrants. Adam said when this bull came around they would get off, wait by the side of the tracks until the train started rolling again, and then quickly jump back on. Many of the details of the journey have been forgotten, but when they go to Fargo he remembered, "There were more of us there to pick potatoes than there were potatoes." He had counted 27 hopeful laborers on the train he rode. After hanging around 3 or 4 days, he caught another train back home.

Yesterday we continued the Thanksgiving celebration at my parents' place where Dad added his anecdote to the hobo story. He talked of the stockyards that stood in Sheldon at one time, and bums hung around there. His dad Charles would go there and hire a couple of them at harvest time, but after working only a day or two, they'd hop another freight train and be off with those few dollars in their pockets.

Railroads were important then, and a good deal of the literature about them was expressed in song. Jimmie Rodgers' song - Waiting for a Train - opens with this line: "All around the water tank waiting for a train, a thousand miles away from home sleeping in the rain." The highly optimistic song The Big Rock Candy Mountain carries the line where "the railroad bulls are blind." Johnny Cash's song Folsom Prison Blues sings of the prisoner who hears the train whistles blowing and wants to be on one. More examples would start to bore a reader since it would take thousands of words to list them all.

Giving Thanks

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving Day with Mary's sister and her family at their ranch south of Mandan. The drives in the country to their place always satisfy me when I take notice of little things. An east wind pushed tumbleweeds bouncing across the road in front of our car. (Cares of the past are behind, nowhere to go, but I'll find - just where the trail will wind, drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.") A flock of geese rested in a stubble field. With little cold weather here, they haven't felt the need to fly south yet. A herd of cattle walked across a dry pasture and each hoofstep kicked up a little cloud of dust. Seeing the little things of the fabric of life seems to fit in well with Thanksgiving.

The only thing I missed seeing yesterday was lefse. I cannot fault my sister-in-law for that since German blood runs in her veins, but the thought of my Grandma Sandvig's lefse at Thanksgiving came to mind. She had few of today's conveniences, but she knew how to make lefse on that wood cookstove in her kitchen. Into this scene comes Grandpa strolling to the stove, lifting the lid of the firebox, and spitting a big stream of Copenhagen juice into the flames. It would snap and crack when it hit the hot coals, Grandma would holler at him, and he would amble away giving no sign that he heard what she said. They kept a milkcow, and I remember spreading homemade butter on that warm lefse. Show me anything better than that!

The memories of family gatherings and Thanksgiving Day sit strong in my mind, those of the far past and those of yesterday. Good food always waited for us on the table, and a mighty satisfied feeling came over me after I ate my fill.

Where's Winter?

Warm weather stayed here. Yesterday the temperature in Bismarck reached 61 degrees. Out of curiosity I looked in this morning's paper at some representative temperatures around the country where I'd expect to see it much warmer: Miami Beach - 63, Jacksonville - 61, Santa Fe -60, Dallas - 67, New Orleans - 57, and Birmingham - 52. We have no snow, a reflection of the drought we're experiencing in this central part of the state. Rainfall and snow melt lack about 5 1/2 inches from normal.

Through the years winter normally would have settled in by now with snow, cold, wind, smoke rising out of chimneys, eyeglasses fogging, ice, etc. If global warming is a reality, maybe we're living with the new normal. The last winter of consequence was 1997, the year of the big flood. Living in Wahpeton just a stone's throw from the head of the Red River we witnessed severe conditions first hand. The Red flows north and melting snow from our area met the iced-up riverbanks downstream. Water backed up and flooded us. I watched as our house was about to be swamped with the water inching toward our basement windows when weather changed, rapidly. It turned cold and the water froze again. Luckily we suffered no flooding damage while neighbors all around us did.

Winter stories accumulate. I remember especially the three day blizzard in 1966. I was a teacher in Bowdon, ND and saw a snowdrift as tall as the peak on the gym roof. The National Guard came to help clean streets. The late 40's and 50's brought lots of snow, and the snow removal equipment we've become accustomed to did not exist. When we could get to school and town we travelled through canyons of snow that old Vern Loomer had bulldozed open with his Caterpillar tractor. I don't know when that kind of weather will return, I hope it doesn't, but I'm sure it will.

Wisdom and Youth?

A short five-lined poem titled "Alexander Throckmorton" in the Spoon River Anthology gives me pause to think and write. He says:

In youth my wings were strong and tireless,
But I did not know the mountains.
In age I knew the mountains
But my weary wings could not follow my vision -
Genius is wisdom and youth.

The author Edgar Lee Masters wrote about 244 fictional characters buried in the Spoon River cemetery, and this is one of my favorites, not because it is short (they all are), but because it portrays the reality for most of us.

I think back to a dreamy youth filled with unreachable goals. If it looked good at the time, I thought I could achieve it. Now, with all of the life experiences that have accumulated, I am more realistic; I know what's out there, but I do not have the energy to move on them.

My Cars

A current TV commercial sponsored by Cadillac catches my eye. In rapid progression they show many of the models they have produced through the years. It sounds like Ringo Starr singing the background vocal, the sound of which drew my attention to the ad in the first place. I've never owned a Cadillac and don't plan to, but the ad makes me reminisce to the cars I've owned. I wonder if I can even remember all of them. My first car was a 1948 Chrysler four-door sedan. That was in the days when the teens were customizing their Fords and Chevies. Mine stood out in that crowd, but it was a solid, comfortable automobile with a fluid drive that let me drive with the recent disability I had acquired. It sat and rusted in the last owner's pasture, and when I inquired about it to go take a last look, he told me it had just been crushed and hauled away.

Next I drove a '53 Chevy with a mismatched dark green hood, a replacement for the one the previous owner had damaged somehow. It got me where I wanted to go until I graduated from college in 1964 when I felt flush enough to buy a '62 Ford Galaxy. Next was a '66 Impala that took me up the Alaska Highway and back down to Colorado long enough to get me through graduate school in Greeley. Money jingled in my pocket from my high school principals's salary in Wyoming, and I traded my '66 for a new 1970 Buick Skylark. This sporty two-door coupe was one of my favorites, and I put lots of miles on it.

From this point the models are mostly unremarkable: a '73 Volkswagon Super Beetle; an American Motors Hornet, the year of which I don't remember but was undoubtedly the worst car I've owned; a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass; a big, used Pontiac; an '82 Buick; a Chevy Lumina; and most recently a string of three Ford Tauruses. We'd settled on the Taurus model as a good one, and now the company has announced it will no longer be in production. There are a couple of cars I wouldn't mind having again, such as the 1965 Ford Mustang that Mary brought to our marriage, but they all need upkeep and proper storage space. I've still got my memories.

Idiots and Dummies

One of the books I recently checked out of the library is titled Improving Your Memory for Dummies with the subtitle Sharpen Your Memory Skills the Fun and Easy Way. Over the past several years a large number of this type of book reached the shelves of bookstores and libraries. I confess to owning a few: Guitar for Dummies, French for Dummies, Philosophy for Dummies, Complete Idiot's Guide to Philosophy, Complete Idiot's Guide to Theories of the Universe and Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Catholicism.

The upshot to owning and/or reading this collection is that I'm still an idiot and a dummy in all of these fields. I find it enjoyable, though, to skim over these subjects in a light reading format, and, at the least, gain appreciation for the people who do excel. Let's see now, what did I start with? Oh, yes, improving your memory.

The disease of Alzheimer's frightens me. I don't think I'm exhibiting any of the symptoms and hope I never do, but if there are things a person can do to forestall its onset, it would be prudent to do so. Chapters of the book are grouped into units: Understanding Memory, Establishing Memory Power, Preserving Your Memory, and Exercising Your Memory Every Day.

A chapter named Ten Best Ways to Improve Your Memory says to consume a balanced diet, relax your brain, exercise your memory, take supplements, stimulate your mind, focus on memory, stay organized, associate-pair-connect, use memory aids, and keep the right attitude.

Now if I can figure out a way to remember them, I'll be in good shape.

I Don't Need a Thesaurus

The small paperback thesaurus I carry on my driving job furnished some words to describe today's scarlet sunrise. I formed a list of words like grand, splendid, noble, radiant, superb and magnificent. After thinking it over, I decided my using these words would not be in character. I generally speak in the vernacular, so it suffices to say that it was one damn, beautiful sunrise.

My present occupation lets me drive through a countryside where I've had chances to view many remarkable sights. Two winters back near Wing I drove past the largest convention of whitetail deer I've ever seen, numbering at least a hundred. Maybe they had gathered to relax and see who had survived the hunting season. That same day driving while driving between Turtle Lake and Underwood, the mother of all pheasant flocks, probably two hundred, materialized alongside the road near a shelterbelt. I have seen coyotes loping along the horizon, two bald eagles arguing over a carrion rabbit in a stubble field, mule deer, antelope, ducks, geese, summer weasels and winter ermine.

And there's always the river - the Missouri - with its wandering sand bars, today's thin-skinned ice that comes and goes with the temperature, and the hills and buttes where the river finds its course. I guess one doesn't really need a thesaurus to describe it when you can be there to feel it.

Corporate Power

In a second hand thrift store I recently bought an old 2002 issue of "Sierra" magazine for a quarter because it featured an essay written by Wendell Berry. He wears many hats - college professor, farmer, conservationist, author, poet, maybe more. I find him to be thought-provoking whenever I read from one of his writings. I have met him and sat in an audience where he gave a reading.

He makes a statement that validates a belief I've begun to hold, so this makes at least two of us who think this: "The massive ascendency of corporate power over democratic process is probably the most ominous development since the start of the Civil War, and for the most part the 'free world' seems to be regarding it as merely normal." Hah, a zoo animal born in a cage probably thinks that's normal, too.

There's an ant army of lobbyists crawling through all levels of government influencing lawmakers to do their bidding, many of them representing corporate power. Where is the democratic process when a President commits military forces to fight a war? Eisenhower warned to beware of the Military-Industrial Complex that likes to sell war machines and yearns to see a good war so they can sell even more. I've begun to wonder what powers lawmakers have over the industries of petroleum, drugs, health care, etc. Maybe we are like those zoo animals and our cage just keeps getting smaller.

Liver and Onions

Last week we read a sign on the side of a restaurant, "Today's Special -- Liver and Onions." I've never been real fond of liver and usually prefer it as liverwurst sausage as a sandwich filler. When we saw that sign we right away thought of the last time that Mary had prepared liver and onions at home. I used to keep a journal in those days, and I quote from that time.

"June 2, 1980 - We had a bad scare with Brandon. He bloated up really bad and we took him to the emergency room at the hospital. He had some sort of intestinal blockage and he was in misery. The doctors were concerned and a surgeon was called in. If he didn't improve by himself, he would have operated to relieve the problem. Luckily, he did get better and passed gas and had a bowel movement so that surgery wasn't needed then. His mother was hovering over him and said something about it being all right to cry when it hurt. He responded, 'Like the Blessed Mother when Jesus was on the cross?' I noticed everyone in the room was affected deeply by that statement. Clinton stayed with us for awhile while it was all happening. But I finally found a babysitter for him as we didn't know how long we would be tied up. He was affected by the whole episode and was quite emotional when I left him."

The stove had been turned off before we left for the hospital, the liver and onions were thrown away, and Mary's never fixed them since.

Veteran's Day, Belatedly

We watched a powerful movie Saturday - Flags of Our Fathers. It was a riveting story of World War II's battle for Iwo Jima, and the battle scenes were horrific. I thought they were as powerful as those in the movie Saving Private Ryan. Since I am not a veteran I can only live war stories vicariously. I can attest to a degree of the pain experienced by a war-wounded veteran because of my own injury, but that would pale in comparison to the hell some of the vets must have gone through. As a young man I remember going into the local tavern and seeing old soldiers lined up at the bar. One did not need classes in psychology to recognize that they were still fighting battles in their troubled minds. I've thought about them a lot through the years.

It was not enough that we had that generation of conflicted lives, we developed even more. Remember Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, Iraq plus a number of almost forgotten smaller ones. Certainly, some military engagements seem necessary to preserve our culture and its ideals. Unfortunately, whether or not military action is necessary becomes a debatable issue and often it is a highly subjective decision rendered by an oligarchy, as is the case in the recent war.

I have seen a picture of the cover of this week's Newsweek magazine. It is a strong depiction showing the first President Bush as a large figure in the foreground with the current Bush a small receding figure in the background. It is a striking metaphor of the elder Bush's philosophy of pragmatism superceding the younger's ideology.

People We Meet

Any trip of a few day's duration introduces the traveler to interesting personalities, and our recent Branson journey did just that. In Kansas City we toured and ate lunch at the Bingham-Waggoner Estate built in 1855. Lunch was served in the carriage house which adjoined the mansion. Several ladies graciously waited on us. My table was served by a lady who loved following the careers of rodeo bulls, and she began to tell us North Dakotans all she knew about Little Yellow Jacket, which was quite a lot. She laughed that her husband thought her hobby a bit odd, but it was what it was. Then she went on to talk about Bodacious, another past champion bucking bull. To validate to us her love of bulls she went and dug her car keys out of her coat pocket to show us the little bull dangling from the key ring.

Next, our bus stopped at the 30 room Vaile Mansion, built in 1881 by a mail contractor. Architecture buffs would have been drawn to its Second-Empire Victorian design. To me it looked as if Count Dracula might come out to meet us, but unfortunately no one did. The fact of our scheduled visit had not been passed on to its volunteer staff who were inside busily decorating for the Christmas season. Luckily we were treated to the hospitality of a welcoming lady who said to come in anyway, even though we'd have to step around the boxes of decorations. She proceeded to give a great tour of the rooms with their ceiling murals and lavish furnishings. She did not act put out by our seemingly unscheduled stop and made it every bit as rich as we could have expected.

The Arabia Steamboat Museum in Kansas City, made possible by the tenacity of its founders, told an interesting story. The Arabia ran the Missouri River from St. Louis to Kansas City until it sunk in 1856 after striking a submerged log. None of its passengers drowned, but a valuable cargo of supplies for the burgeoning westward movement sank. As the days passed the vessel sunk lower and lower into the yielding sand of the riverbed making salvage impossible. Through the decades the channel of the river changed and the steamboat's resting place was found under a cornfield. We met one of the partners who doggedly stayed with the discovery and salvage effort. Their initial plan was to sell the recovered cargo as antique items for profit. When they realized how good its quality and condition was, they felt it all needed to be kept together as a museum collection. They went deeply into debt to make the museum possible. Their persistence was admirable.

Master Sophist

One of the great sophists in history resigned his position yesterday - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He fits well the definition of a person practicing clever, specious reasoning. Specious because his arguments seemed to be good, sound, correct, logical, etc. without really being so. I've lost track of how many competent generals retired or were forced to bite their tongue so as not to publicly take issue with him. I still think of Colin Powell's resignation as Secretary of State, an action that smacked of his disgust with the thinly disguised in-fighting with Rumsfeld.

Many's the time Rumsfeld stood at a podium and laid out his arguments for Iraqi strategy and tactics. Cowed reporters phrased their questions so as not to ruffle his temper. Everyone seemed to be highly intimidated by the man. We knew a monumental problem existed when retired generals who no longer had need to fear began calling for his resignation. Recently a major armed services publication called for him to resign. And with the election ... the citizenry demanded change.

He'll retire like any deposed person, probably continue to practice his sophistry in a book of memoir, and make a pile of money from it. Meanwhile, three thousand military personnel have died over there, and the consensus taking form seems to say it was all a mistake.

Talkin' Sheep

It's not often I get into a discussion about sheep, much less with a rancher's widowed wife, but there we were in the Petro Truck Stop in Fargo waiting to board the bus for the last leg home from our trip to Branson. I was using my ears as antennae to ferret out interesting conversation, and I picked up that signal and tuned in. We talked breeds. She liked the Rambouillets because you could grab them by their horns and wrestle them to where you wanted them to go. Her son and his wife operated the place now, but she still helped out. They leaned to the Suffolk breed of sheep, a disappointing fact to her: they were too stubborn and were poor mothers besides. I asked if there was any money to be made now in sheep, and she shook her head no. They had to haul their last wool crop to Billings to sell at an almost give-away price.

I thought back to my life with sheep as a boy. Dad liked to buy inexpensive broken-mouthed Columbia bred ewes from Montana. Broken-mouth meant they were old and had lost many of their teeth. They usually proved to be a sound purchase, however, since we'd get one crop of lambs and one clipping of wool from them, then sell them again, the whole affair usually earning some profit.

One time Dad thought he'd like to buy a Southdown buck for breeding and found one that had won a blue ribbon at the Red River Valley Fair. It was a nice looking animal, and he got turned in with the ewes to earn his keep. Alas, something went wrong. He got sick and died. There was no way of telling how many ewes he'd bred, so another buck of lesser quality took his place. In the spring the results of the high-powered breeding plan proved meager. Only one lamb of recognizable Southdown characteristics roamed about the barnyard. Luckily, it was a young buck, and he grew to be his father's replacement.

Truman Presidential Museum

We stopped in Independence, MO as our recent bus tour headed north to home and visited the Truman Presidential Museum. Each time I visit my watch seems to run too fast, and it's time to go again having left unseen or unstudied many artifacts and documents. My knowledge of this man's Presidency tells me that history turned on his term in office, good or bad, and I'm always left wanting to know more. Harry S (without a period) Truman was the first President I remember. He impressed upon this young mind his ability and need to stand stalwart in difficult situations.

On entering the building you see the large mural painted by Thomas Hart Benton, "Independence and the Opening of the West." A portal opens in the middle of the painting through which the museum lies beyond. His famous desk plaque stating The Buck Stops Here greets you as the first exhibit. Our guide told us the term originated with the card game of poker when a marker, a knife with a buckhorn handle was used to indicate whose turn it was to deal. If the player did not wish to deal he could pass the job on by passing the "buck." Truman said as President he couldn't pass the buck to anybody.

One exhibit hanging from the ceiling stopped me, enough so that I nudged Mary to look up. Hundreds of tiny model planes hung suspended in a flight pattern. The guide saw my interest and said they represent the nearly 600 planes that flew each day for fourteen months to supply the Berlin Air Lift. The eagle on the Presidential seal met with Truman's displeasure, so much so that he had the eagle's head turned to face the olive branches in its claws instead of the bundle of arrows. And, of course, the museum gave attention to the screw-up of the Chicago Daily Tribune's erroneous headline blaring "Dewey Defeats Truman."

Truman was the last President to retire without the perks of a pension or a security detail and lived modestly in his Independence home until his death in 1969. Time and space don't allow me to write of his decisions regarding the atom bomb, the Marshall Plan, Korea, labor, race, etc. For good or bad, his was an important Presidency.

Points South

We returned from Branson, Missouri finding the weather milder here than there. When asked by a native Missourian where we hailed from, our answer usually got a response something like "Y'all came down here to get away from the cold?" I thought it was chilly down there. This trip was our fourth one to Branson, and we have seen a total of about 20 different shows. This time we saw five: Moe Bandy, Daniel O'Donnell, Doug Gabriel, Presley Family, and the Dixie Stampede. Side trips included a ride on the Branson Scenic Railway, two Civil War era mansions, a steamboat museum, and the Truman Presidential Museum.

The top three attractions in my estimation were Moe Bandy, Daniel O'Donnell, and the Truman Museum. O'Donnell, because of his many appearances on public television, should be pretty well recognized by everybody for his talent and showmanship. He gave us almost three hours of entertainment. Our trip to the Truman Museum was my third time there, and I will comment on it tomorrow. Moe Bandy deserves a little of my attention here. One probably needs be a country music fan to recognize him and his body of songs, one of which is a favorite of mine - Too Old to Die Young.

The strong lyrics of this song have always appealed to my sense of good song writing. It starts "If life is like a candle bright, death must be the wind," and the chorus says to "Let me watch my children grow to see what they become. Oh, Lord, don't let that cold wind blow 'til I'm too old to die young." Lucky for me I have found that song translated into a simple three chord melody that my limited guitar playing ability can handle. I've been reading lately that country music has reached a high state of popularity again because it's lyrics connect with more people. Moe's is not a new song but represents just that idea.