Sophistry

For reasons unknown to me
the word sophistry keeps running
through this old word warrior’s head
today. Dad always used to say
You’re shootin’ your mouth off
if I argued with him without knowing
what I was talking about. You want
to see sophistry in action? Walk
into a saloon around five o’clock
in the afternoon when men line
the bar like blackbirds on telephone
wire and start talking politics. You
soon discover the absence of facts
never gets in the way of a good
argument. Potemkin sure fooled
Catherine the Great when he built
villages with hollow buildings to make
her think things were going well
in the realm. That reminds me
of the galvanic bloviators in the media
who sway folks with their hollow
reasoning. They open their mouths
and start chattering, but maybe
it’s no different than being a poet
who doesn’t know what will flow
from the tip of his pen.

Repressed Memories

I wish we could have had a little warmer October, but things haven’t worked out that way. I remember some years where it has been hot and others where we have had quite a little snow. One result from the early hard frost is that we lost our fall colors, in fact, we never had any since they went right from green to dry brown and blowing away in a couple windy days.

I am a faithful reader of several news magazines: Time, Newsweek, and The Nation. Yesterday’s Newsweek carried a short book review that I related to. The headline read “The Luxury of Memory,” with the article discussing the book Enemies of the People. Kati Marton, born and raised Hungarian, was the daughter of AP and UPI correspondents who wrote freely about the shortcomings of the communist regime ruling that country. As the girl grew older she’d ask her parents about their work and what they knew, but they’d wave her off saying, “You cannot ever understand” and consequently told her very little. After the death of her parents, however, she researched and discovered who her parents were, how imperiled they were, and how they thought thinking about the past was an American luxury. They did not want to look back. Most people have encountered how little war veterans will tell you of their war experiences. Dad tells of one veteran who while very drunk told him of throwing explosives into a German bunker and hearing the sounds of the wounded dying soldiers. When sober I don't think he ever told these stories.

My Grandma Bueling as a girl the age of eleven came with her family from the Ukraine in the midst of the mass migration of Germans from Russia. Since she was very stoic we never learned much of her life there, but the stories she did tell spoke of their hardship of life. This one is indelibly printed in my mind: she had to herd cows in the cold and wore no shoes. To warm her feet she’d stand in the warm piles of manure the cows pooped out. We knew there was much else she did not want to remember. My wife has learned tales of her German-Russian relatives and some of the horrific incidents they experienced. This far removed from that time, she has a felt need to not resurrect those memories for public consumption. I know because I wanted to make reference to one of the stories and was censored. The psychological term for this, I believe, is repressed memory. Some things should not be remembered. In my life I have experienced something horrific; it is not something I talk about (with anyone).

The Days Are Full

I attended an interesting “Conversation” moderated by Clay Jenkinson and BSC president Larry Skogen at Bismarck State College on Sunday. The topic was “The Poetry of ‘No Man Is an Island,’” dealing with works written by John Donne in the 17th century. This one of Donne’s quotations is most familiar to us, “No man is an island, entire of itself… any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” It seems as if back in those days whenever someone died church bells would ring to announce the event. Donne was a preacher who was always trying to prepare people for death and the saving of their souls, thus when it tolls for a death, it is also associated with your needing to get prepared.

Ernest Hemingway obviously liked the quote when he used part of it for one of his novels For Whom the Bell Tolls. For some reason all this literary talk reminded me of a short story I had read in high school English class. I could not think of the title or the author, so I had to do quite a bit of searching on the internet to come up with it. The story was “The Bet” by Anton Chekov; it’s on the internet, not long, and within a few minutes I had reread it. My memory had failed though. The ending wasn’t quite as I remembered it, but it’s still a great story. At the beginning a bet was made between two gentlemen that the one couldn’t stay voluntarily imprisoned for fifteen years, but if he did, the other would pay two million dollars. Well, the years passed by and the man never came out of his prison. The money-man began to worry greatly for if he had to pay off the bet it would bankrupt him. The only thing for him to do was to murder the prisoner. Over the years the prisoner had read all the world’s great literature and had come to the conclusion he wanted no part of materialism or money so a few minutes before the deadline he walked out of his cell.

On Thursday Mary flies off to Minneapolis to act the part of a grandma and I’m off to Dickinson for a symposium at the college. It’s the Theodore Roosevelt meeting. This year’s topic: Family Man in the Arena. Any reader of this can find lots of information at this website: theodorerooseveltcenter.com. By clicking on “Video Clips” in the Media box most of the talks and lectures can be viewed in the archive.

Old News

Yesterday I drove over to the capitol grounds to do some reading in the heritage center where there are on file hundreds of microfilms of old state newspapers. I think it’s fun to read through my old hometown paper and this time chose the century old 1909 volume of The Sheldon Progress. The writers wrote with flowery terms such as in the article about twin colts being born at the Creswell farm. “One survived only a few hours while the other one lived for several days when it followed its mate to the equine’s paradise.” I’ve known baseball was important during this period: “A little comedy on the great national game was perpetrated when the Enderlin high school team came over for a little practice session. The Sheldon team has had no practice whatever and can therefore be excused for the rotten exhibition it put up. About seven innings were played when by mutual consent the game ended, Enderlin at that time having secured twelve runs and Sheldon a fine, fat goose egg.”

Politically correct language was not in use yet, and minority groups were often the butt of slang expressions: “One coon cut another at Minot making a gash to close which surgeons took twenty-one stitches.”

One week a business advertised twine made at the state penitentiary, then a couple weeks later this item appeared: “A man named Bacon got a team from Farmer Lakin of McLean County with the understanding that he would work in the Ward County harvest fields awhile and divide the proceeds. He sold the team and skipped. He was recently captured in Minnesota and may develop into an expert twine maker.”

The following item shows vigilante justice was favored: “A number of Enderlin’s valuable dogs have recently gone to the dog heaven via the poison route. The bereaved owners are showing considerable feeling over the affair and threaten to make a present of a coat of tar and feathers to the poison artist if he is discovered.” This story wasn’t over yet. A few weeks later I read: “Bey Shafer autoed over to Enderlin on Sunday afternoon and took his two dogs along. When he returned he had but one dog, the other having died on the way home. While in the Soo Line town the dead dog evidently made a meal on some of the poison which an enterprising Enderlinite, as yet unknown, has been spreading broadcast over that village and which has already been the means of removing some thousand dollar’s worth of dogs from this dust blown sphere to the canine happy hunting grounds. Bey says the tragedy has not impaired his appetite or wrung his heart strings to any great extent, as the departed animal had been given away several times during his lifetime and always came back. This time he’s confident he won’t come back.”

The issue dated October 8, 1909 carried this headline: “Orville reaches unprecedented height of over 1600 feet - Ascends for fifteen minutes - Aviator descents in five minutes at a simply terrifying speed.”

More 10-8-09 items: “Owego - Albert Anderson is now handling the mail on route no. 2 and dishing out the pretty post cards to the rural dwellers.” “White Sox manager tolerates no loafing on bases - speed big factor in winning game.” “Peru is sending its president’s son to learn scientific farming in Wisconsin, though llama raising is but indifferently taught here.”

Whenever I want a change of pace I can go back to the heritage library and find lots of amusing entertainment. Times were different then, except I found one striking article that seems to translate to today’s concern for any changes or advancements: “The charge is made that the phonograph and the automatic piano are lowering public taste. That is one way of looking at the situation. These new inventions are taking music into homes where it never was before and never would be but for them. They are doing for music what the invention of printing did for the art of reading. There is still literature - and some of the beautiful creations in lit. come from those who under old conditions would never have learned to read. There may be hope for music.”