Some Days Are Downers

Yesterday we took a regular trip to Lisbon to visit with my parents at the Parkside Home. Over the phone a couple days previous to that I’d asked Dad if he wanted to take a drive to Sheldon and look things over. Yes, he wanted to very badly. After a nice fish dinner at the home we took off. Along Highway 27 and the road south of Sheldon the crops looked good even though some of the sloughs were full. At the junction of the two roads a dozen potato hauling trucks stood parked at their site making me wonder if a good potato harvest is being expected. Arriving in Sheldon we drove slowly around the streets looking at the mostly run-down condition of the houses in town. We pulled into Curt Black’s yard and drove around his circle drive to find him sorting through a junk bucket in preparation for his September sale. He is one of Dad’s last remaining friends since he’s outlived most everyone else. After exchanging a few pleasantries we drove east of Sheldon to look around.

The conditions of the fields were as we expected to find them - wet and weedy; many of the quarter sections haven’t seen a tractor wheel turn on them this spring, the second year of absolutely no production. Township roads are under water in some spots so we had to pick our way to get to the farm location where I was raised. Even in good growing conditions, my travels through this countryside are somewhat depressing. We passed the farm site where I was brought into the world, the same farm pictured on the cover of my recent book, and where now there is nothing except a few trees. Straight south a half mile is the site of the farmstead that the folks built up and is the scene of my growing years. It is gone, the few remaining cottonwoods shoved into a pile. Another half mile and we passed the historical site plowed under, an old wagon road from Owego to Sheldon. Another half mile used to stand my grandparents farmstead, a place were 52 years ago I met with a life-changing accident. Further along the road, the Lyle Schimming farmstead has vanished. So much has changed, so much gone.

Returning to Sheldon we repeated our trip through the gloomy field situations and came in on the east side. There our once nicely kept school and grounds stands in shambles with junk sitting around and a large hole cut in the gym’s east end so that trucks can come and go within.

Main street had only one car on it and we surmised it was probably the bar keeper’s. The only site of real activity has been and still is the grain elevator where several people can draw a paycheck. Then out west we turned to drive past our land there. We were met with a large sign stating there was no traffic allowed. We’ve heard that’s because of water flowing over a low spot. We turned before that though to drive south to the farm my folks bought from Ma’s parents. There the tenant had put up a nice crop of alfalfa bales on the north field by the railroad tracks, and we could see grain waving in the wind over on the west side of the creek.

While Dad was with us I asked him to verify some property lines since he and Ma had sold five acres a few years back. Stopping there on the road and scanning things over we were met with four barking dogs that came out of the yard signaling in their animal way that we were unwanted there. We could not continue driving south since the creek water stood over that road, so we backtracked and headed back to Lisbon. So for the day we saw one person we knew, Curt Black, and two strangers standing on main street as we came back through. I guess we can call it a ghost town.

Historical Bits

Small town newspapers in days-gone-by published their news stories with a certain flair that, unfortunately, today’s schools of journalism teach their students not to write. I enjoy reading the stories written a century ago.

100 Years Ago in Sheldon

(ad) Lock Step Binder Twine is guaranteed to be as smooth and even and as free from knots and weak spots as are the characters of the men who spin it . . .

Adolph Ihme, living nine miles northwest of here, crossed over the state line into South Dakota a few days ago and returned via Fargo on Saturday morning last with a handsome bride . . .

Charles Ufer, Sr. met with a serious accident. While driving in a couple of horses from the pasture one of the animals kicked him in the face, cutting it quite badly. He was unconscious for two hours and when he got to the house was in such a dazed condition that he could not explain how the accident happened. Restoratives were applied and he is improving slowly.

For Sale - Northwest Quarter Section 17, one mile south of Coburn. Bargain at $15 per acre. A. F. Anderson, Lemmon, S. D.

There are the usual battles being waged on the dandelions - with the usual effect.

The east bound freight train got tired of keeping in the middle of the road on last Friday and when between Elliott and Lisbon, jumped the track and bumped along over the ties for several hundred feet.

(The citizens of the village of Sheldon have often spoken with a sort of questionable pride of their infamous outlaw well. The following item might remind one in an eerie way of the runaway oil well in the Gulf.) The large outside casing is now being put down in the artesian gusher, but as yet nothing can be known as to what the result will be.
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Last evening Mary and I attended a “premiere” at the Belle Mehus Theater in downtown Bismarck featuring a film about a past North Dakota governor William L. Guy. It was very good and surprisingly there were a lot of audience laughs during the showing because of the way politics of the time was portrayed. A box seat situated in a place of honor at the front of the auditorium went empty. Instead, Mr. and Mrs. Guy walked almost unnoticed down the aisle until they reached the midway point when everyone realized it and then stood for the ovation. Neither did they sit in the front row. They sat five or six rows from the front, more in the middle of the audience. I read it as their not wanting to be “elevated,” but instead looked on as one with the people. I thought it was a nice gesture on their part

Exploring A Tangent

To me it’s always fun and interesting to explore a tangent. That is what has happened as I read up on the early surveying of my home area. How did those guys do it? I’ve found a few recently published books that have told me much more than I knew before. The most important idea that comes out is that when land began to be surveyed and its limits or borders were established is when it began to have a monetary value. Andro Linklater authored two these books: The Fabric of America and Measuring America. The first mentioned book bears the subtitle How Our Borders Shaped the Country and Forged Our National Identity. Without property assignments that can be recorded we would just be a bunch of squatters on a piece of land, holding on to it only unless someone stronger came along and decided to take it away.

I remember seeing one time in a box of junk Dad had purchased at an auction a length of chain with oblong links the likes of which I’d never seen before. Without knowing what it was, it was just some more junk he had brought home. I know now what it was, it was a Gunter’s Chain invented by Edmund Gunter in the early 1600’s. He designed them to be an exact length, 66 feet, and one of the important facets of surveying was born. It’s a topic much too long to discuss in this modest blog, but I’m finding it very interesting and will be able to use a lot of information in my next project.
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Main street in Mandan filled up last Sunday with classic cars, 550 of them plus some classic farm tractors. And bring a crowd of lookers it does! My favorites are the ones I wished I could have had when it would have made a difference. I think I’d liked to have owned a ‘57 Chevy most of all, and there were a few of those beauties there. The rare car present was a 1908 Maxwell that exists in its original condition. Apparently it found a good storage shed all its life.
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Monday evening Mary and I attended a picnic sponsored by a history group I have joined, The Westerners. The site, located about ten miles south of Mandan, sat in some of the prettiest country in North Dakota. With ample rain, the grass shone green and lush, and the rugged terrain was as good as the food. Clay Jenkinson spoke about the West and its early inhabitants

Garage Sale

We’re getting ready to hold a garage sale this Friday and Saturday. Stuff accumulates. Some people don’t save it but live their lives slick and clean. I don’t know if it’s admirable or not. A spoken line repeated over and over at one school I worked at said: a clean desk is the sign of a sick mind. My life is messy; it is hard to throw things away. My wife is the opposite, and since they say opposites attract it might be interesting to note that we celebrated our 36th anniversary yesterday.

My philosophy has evolved over the years, but I have come to the place where if I want to look at something antiquey, I will go to a museum. So out go those two pair of hames, that broken cow bell, two gopher traps, one pair of buggy steps, assorted metal ends for single trees, a wooden hay pulley, some rusty horseshoes with the nails still sticking out of them, and a string of sleigh bells on a rotten leather strap.

A few things stay though. There is that white leather show halter I bought to lead my 4-H calves at judging shows. I remember showing a blue ribbon Holstein heifer at Lisbon and had a hard time controlling her with the tie-up halter. The judge overlooked that and kindly recommended a show type. I’m keeping a solid brass steam engine valve. Why, I guess just because it is such a high quality item from another time. I’m keeping the Craftsman wrenches one inch and above even if I don’t use them. I looked up their price on the internet, and I know I could not get what they are worth. Other things even though they are priced and on the table might yet get retrieved, too, however I will have to do that without the wife seeing it.

I told the wife I think we’ve got another ten years at this place and then we’ll move to a smaller place that is easier to take care of. Of course, she hasn’t put her stamp of approval on that one, but time works against us. Ten years hence I will be 78 years old!

50 Years - Come and Gone

It wasn’t so long ago that I realized our high school graduation took place fifty years ago, just like that. I only heard from one classmate who suggested a get-together might be in order, but nary a spark of interest from anyone else. I guess everyone in our class just wants to forget how long ago that event occurred. At the time, it was big! In our eyes the girls were prettier, the fish bigger, and we thought we would live forever. Two of the classmates I remember being with us at one time or another have passed on, and I suppose it means we all will. So the words and melody of a song come into my head, “Let’s live, love, laugh, and be happy!”

We’ll be attending a fiftieth wedding anniversary of a cousin of mine this coming weekend. She probably wonders how the time slipped by. I don’t feel like I’ve been married long but it’ll soon be our 37th anniversary. Over those years along with the wife, I’ve gained children and grandchildren, a house, and a two-car garage. That’s been the American dream all along.

And to finish off, I ran into a ditty that made me stop and think. Looking around the Huffington Post book section I found this taken from a college graduation speech given by David Foster Wallace. He said, "There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way who nods at them and says 'Morning, boys. How's the water, and the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water.'" His point was on making conscious choices on how to perceive the world.