Another Wednesday has rolled around, and a short while ago I realized I hadn’t yet written this blog. If I would have forgotten to write today the world would have continued to spin, the sun still would have glowed in the sky, and anyone who reads it would have discovered they got along just fine without it. But, this has all gotten to be a habit and is probably one that I will not break (even though I threaten to do so occasionally). My near-omission in writing came to light as I listened to public radio and heard Meryl Piepkorn and Clay Jenkinson discussing the Teddy Roosevelt Symposium scheduled for the middle of October, and I said to Mary as we drove home from the Merle Norman beauty works store in Bismarck, “Hey, is today Wednesday? I haven’t written my blog yet!”
The symposium at Dickinson State College this year is their fourth one and bears the title Theodore Roosevelt: Family Man in the Arena. TR raised quite a brood of children and the topics will discuss how he interacted with the family. Prominent writers and speakers always attend and the author of one of the best single volume histories of Roosevelt will speak: Kathleen Dalton, author of Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life.
Mary flies off to Minneapolis during that time to babysit our grandkids, so I will be free to make like a bird and go to Dickinson and soak up some interesting information. Part of the symposia will be a trip on Saturday to the Elkhorn Ranch in the Badlands. Jenkinson said today that past authors and speakers have all said they wished they would have visited that site before writing their books.
Dickinson State University has earned some notoriety in the academic world because they have worked with the Library of Congress in developing and now housing a digitized library of all of TR’s writings, a massive undertaking. Anyone interested in looking at this work go to www.theodorerooseveltcenter.com and click on Documents.
