Havin' Fun with Words

I was just sitting here thinking I should try to finish a poem I had started some time ago. With my favored seven syllable line, this is what I came up with.

We've all seen horseback riders
atop galloping horses
standing tall in their stirrups
and throwing coiled lariats
at desperate rodeo
calves. Hell, I've even written
a poem about Bill Dee's
stirrups and how he gave them
to Dad. But many don't know ---
they had to be invented.

You see, Genghis Khan had men
in his Mongolian horde
who needed to have solid
footing so as to drive spears
hard into the hearts of foes
who stood in their path. Bareback
riders just could not direct
desired muscled energy
into victims' flesh without
bracing themselves for the blow.

This concerned the old man Khan
enough so that he sponsored
a contest giving his horde
a rare opportunity:
design a better platform
upon which to deliver
your spears more efficiently.
And so it was, the stirrup
came into being, proving
"there are no gains without pains."

After the Poem

I survived the annual Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Medora this past weekend and was satisfied with the way my presentation went. This crowd likes to be entertained, and for the most part, humor goes over the best. My poetry was on the sober side, but I think I had them with me the whole way. I tried to make a cowboy connection with World War One since it was Memorial Day weekend. My poem fills two typed pages so I will not try to repeat it in this blog. One part of my poem seemed to really connect with the audience:

"Many horses were killed in battle, too,
and with each explosion that blew
more carcasses piled up in view.

There's been passed along this story
of a horse whose praises should be sung in glory,
he had six deep wounds and an eye that dangled - gory.

His driver wanted to shoot him there by the side of the road,
but he couldn't raise his gun to end the episode
because that horse was still pulling his share of the load."

The poem has sparked memories to burn again among descendants of Grandpa Sandvig's participation in the war. My cousin Andrea Sandvig of New York City stumbled onto my blogging efforts, and when I shared the poem with her she remembered that "Grandpa talked a little about the war to me. He said he hated to hear the horses scream and that he was always thirsty."

This morning's mail brought more interesting information. My Uncle Darrel Sandvig of Moorhead, MN wrote to me of the cowboy connection as he had heard it from Grandpa, "He liked to tell the story about a train load of new recruits came into the camp, and as drill instructors like to do, started yelling at them to hurry, hurry and get off the train now. One of the cowboys said I came into this mans army to fight and I might as well get started now, and with a good right hand decked one of the SGT's. Next train arrived from Montana, they met it with rifles and fixed bayonets."

I capped my poem with my version of Billy Ray Cyrus' song, "Some Gave All" and ended with a guitar version of "Taps." All in all, I think my presentation was fitting and appropriate.

Scrambled Eggs

This Memorial Day weekend will be a big one for Mary and me, as it has been for several years running. I’ve been busy preparing another presentation for the annual Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering. A call to my doctor got me another prescription of my stage-fright medicine, and I’m ready to go. Who’d have thought, not me, that I’d walk on a stage with a guitar to sing and play “stuff” I’ve written. It went over well enough last year. I know because I was asked for copies of that stuff so it could be used other places. This year I’m turning serious and tying together my cowboy poetry theme with the spirit of Memorial Day. My Grandpa fought in World War I with a division made up of cowboys from the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, etc. so I’ve had an interesting time researching and writing this all up and think it will fit in quite nicely.
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Yesterday a letter in my mailbox came as a complete surprise. It was from a cousin I hadn’t seen or heard from for 40-50 years. She has been living in New York City and sounds as though she has done quite well for herself. She stumbled upon this blog while cruising around the internet and was prompted to get in touch. She spoke of her fondness for our grandpa so I forwarded much of my Medora presentation to her. Personal letters have become something of a rarity and are always appreciated when they arrive.
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It is dry in this part of the country. Plants and trees are greening up, but strong winds want to blow and suck moisture out of the ground. Weathermen tease us with their percent chance of rain, but nothing has fallen yet. Rain fell in a timely fashion last year and the good hay crop furnished enough so that one can see quite a little carryover in ranchers’ yards to use next winter if the hay doesn’t grow this year.
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Word came this week of the death of a friend’s father. The paper stated he was 101 years old. His life was an example of a hardworking farm life not hurting him but instead probably contributed to his longevity. I have lots of good memories of him.
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Well, I’ve done enough bloviating for this week. I’m tempted to put a counter on this blog so I can find out if anyone besides my cousin reads it. In one sense, it doesn’t matter a lot to me since this is a log, akin to a diary, where I place random thoughts and themes. Forcing myself to write once a week makes my brain work.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

We witnessed an event this past Sunday that made us proud. Our daughter-in-law Robyn received her medical degree and now can write the initials M.D. behind her name. I suppose we can’t take any credit for this happening except for the fact that she is married to our son and he had the good fortune, or is it wisdom, to marry someone with the intelligence and drive to get to this point.

Fifty-nine medical students graduated with this class, and it was fun watching each one being conferred and called with the title “Doctor” as he or she walked away with the diploma in hand. As graduation ceremonies go, it was similar to most any of them. High-powered academics on campus participated in the ceremony, and the keynote speaker had been born and raised in North Dakota who now bore the title of professor and chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

His speech, “Being the Best You Can Be”, was good enough but was sprinkled with the garden variety of jokes such as when he admonished the class to never prescribe sleeping pills and laxatives at the same time. Our son Clint said that the University president usually tells that joke each year, but this fellow beat him to it. To sum the day up, it was an event to which I’ll never be a part of again, so I tried to make the most of it.

Fitness Workouts

I joined a fitness club about a year ago and like to work out on their Nautilus machines three times a week. I haven’t lost much weight but have re-distributed some of it into different shapes and hardness. A few years ago I read a quote by someone that really resonated with me, “The less you do, the less you can do.” It is hard to imagine how soft I was a year ago, and I hope I don’t regress to that condition again. A couple of days ago my father-in-law came knocking at the door asking for help with the water well on his property. It had stopped pumping water, and he wanted to lift the pipes to see if the sandpoint was still in working order. He had rented a jack to do the heavy lifting, but the jack was clumsy to operate, and I was able to act the part of Superman and do most of the lifting myself. I didn’t get stiff or sore from the exertion and will chalk that up to being in fairly good condition. A year ago I couldn’t have done it.

Fitness clubs have become popular, and Bismarck-Mandan have built their fair share. The one I joined couldn’t make it any easier to work out. Their facility is available 24 hours per day for their members. All you need is a key, and you can go in.

There are several of us who are about the same age that show up at the same time, and we have become acquainted in a light-hearted and jovial way. One of those fellows is a particularly good example of how physical workouts are beneficial. He is a diabetic who took several shots each day to function. He told me that when he first started out on the treadmill he was so weak and out of shape that he fell off it after a minute or so and had to be helped back up by a couple of women. With a strong will he has kept at it, and now only takes pills for his condition instead of the shots and can walk on the treadmill for an hour each session.

“The less you do, the less you can do” philosophy has become something of a goal for good living with me, and I am trying to apply that to mental exercise as well. This damn aging process steals plenty from a person and I’m working hard at staying functional for as long as I can.

A Funeral

He would have liked his own funeral if he could have been there I thought yesterday as I drove home. Today my thoughts still linger with that high school classmate whose sudden passing shocked us all. Many friends and relatives attended and mourned his passing. The site of the service was a small Lutheran church standing in the lonely countryide where he made his home. It filled quickly, and the overflow sent to the dining room swelled so that those chairs soon filled leaving only standing room, which itself was elbow to elbow. Someone, a clergyman perhaps, had placed a head of wheat in the breast pocket of his suitcoat. It seemed an appropriate symbol, both of his life as a farmer and of the church’s message of birth, death and resurrection.

Forty-eight years have passed since we graduated. The ceremony was the first event ever conducted in Sheldon’s brand new gymnasium. We had fun in school; studying was never held in high esteem by many of us. Whenever members of the class gather, we share stories of the antics. The memories remain. Now the school district has joined with a larger neighboring district and left our old school building vacant. It has been sold to a private concern with some grandiose plans. I drove past it yesterday. Besides various piles of junk and old buildings that the new owner has seen fit to pile on the grounds, he has also cut a large hole into the end of the gym and has driven trucks onto the floor to pile things on. Our time there has passed. Someday that building will tumble to a pile of rubble much like the old Catholic school building in town that you can still see if you know where to look.

We are faced now with the fact that the friends we made there have started to pass on just like those old times passed on. His father died last winter, but his body had not yet been interred, and the sad fact arose that the father and the son were going to be buried on the same day. Rest in peace, old friend.