Dear Mary,
Not much has happened since you flew off to Minneapolis for a few days to help take care of our new granddaughter. Not much, that is, until Sunday. I got up as usual, made coffee, read the paper, and watched some news shows. Then I wandered on down to my study to look for a book and ran into one that’s been on my shelf for some time that I hadn’t even read yet, a Jim Harrison book of poetry named Saving Daylight. Harrison’s the one you might remember who wrote Legends of the Fall which was later made into the movie starring Brad Pitt. At any rate his poems always make me think of the outdoors and living the strenuous life. His style of writing is what made me take off in my younger days to search out that better world. Then I got to wondering about all the other books I’ve started to read and had laid aside planning to get back to later. I found some: John Adams by David McCullough, Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, plus a couple of others. I’ve brought them all up and set them in my little cabinet and promised myself I will read them now. I also just bought the Norman Maclean Reader. He wrote A River Runs Through It. Remember, that’s the one you didn’t like too well because the younger brother kept getting into jams and then got murdered at the end.
Around 10:00 a.m. I decided to get a cup of coffee at McDonald’s and was I ever surprised when I drove down our hill: that eighty acre alfalfa field on the river bottom looked like an ocean. I blamed it on snow thaw, but a quarter mile down the road when I crossed the Sitting Bull Bridge on 1806 I found out where it came from, from water backing up on the Heart River. Boy, talk about a placid little stream gone wild! It ran high, wide, and filled solid with chunks of ice and tree branches picked up along the way. It reminded me of a herd of buffalo, close-packed and running through a canyon. And rubberneckers, lots of people parked along the roadside to gawk and take pictures.
I made it for coffee and in there I noticed a few cowboys with their high top boots and remembered the horse sale scheduled to continue Sunday. I drove by on Saturday and saw how full the lot around Kist’s sale barn was, so I never even tried to go in. But Sunday morning, I thought, I’ll just run down there for a look see. I climbed the bleachers and sat behind an Indian fellow with a big hat. (You’ve probably noticed that Indians dress like cowboys nowadays.) The vent holes in his Stetson were on the back of the hat and were in the shape of a cross. On its side he wore a gold pin in the shape of a coup stick that had four little feathers hanging from it. I wondered if he was counting coup or scalps, but I digress.
The auctioneer rattled off his chant, a side man took the mike occasionally to inject a little information, and horses were ridden in singly and put through their paces in that little twenty foot diameter sales ring. Taunts like “She’ll please ya’, she enjoys what she’s doin’,” “Boy, here’s a horse that needs buyin’,” or “Excellent disposition, no buck in ‘im” were uttered between bids. With the last one, the gelding’s rider slid off the rear end of the horse to prove the side man told no lies. I could only think that with the way the boy’s legs were spread how the thought of emasculation might flash through his mind if the horse decided to kick.
Of course, it wasn’t only fat or skinny cowboys that rode the horses into the ring. A leopard marked appaloosa ridden by a gal with long blonde tresses changed the scenery for a bit. Others must have been watching closely, too, because that horse seemed to bring more money. I had to laugh at a little Shetland pony that trotted in being ridden by a skinny, long-legged fellow whose feet dangled way below the stirrups. It brought $750.
I decided to leave after awhile and paid a visit to the men’s restroom. I passed some private deals being made in the hallway, saw the café jammed to capacity, and entered the toilet to find it really smelly. Two fellas stood at the urinals where one said to the other, “I think your boots smell better than this!” About then a stool flushed and a tall dude stepped out all red-faced embarrassed saying, “I had a rough night last night.”
When I drove out of the lot I noticed license plates from all over the midwest: South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Wyoming. It’s a popular sale, what more can I say. I always enjoy sitting there for a spell. I’ll never forget the time I went to a buffalo sale and saw a young bull leap ten feet straight in the air trying to get over the sale ring fence. Talk about athletic ability!
I drove back home and the water had gotten deeper and more people sat parked alongside the road gawking at it. I haven’t forgotten, and I know you haven’t either, how deep the water got in '97 when we lived in Wahpeton. I sure hope Fargo can keep ahead of the flood water this spring, but it doesn’t look good.
Later, in the afternoon I went to a movie: Julia Roberts in Duplicity. Not too bad. I decided to buy a popcorn because I hadn’t been eating too well, but it was so salty I had to go buy a pop, too. It cost $6.50 for a ticket, $3.00 for the corn, and $2.00 for the drink. $11.50. You always say I’m the cheap one, but you didn’t give me a very big allowance this month and now I’m broke.
I’m getting tired of eating TV dinners and di Giorno frozen pizzas. Maybe when you get home you might whip up a nice batch of those cowboy beans that taste so good. Well, I’d better close for now. I’ve got some books to read.
Love,
Lynn
p.s. The clothes hamper is full.
