Last night we attended a poetry reading given by Timothy Murphy who lives just a bit south of Fargo and has investments in farming interests around that area. The Lewis and Clark Fort Mandan Foundation has taken a liking to his poetry, enough so to publish his work. Many of his poems center around his love of hunting pheasants with his dog. He was born in Hibbing, Mn, the son of two college professors who lived in an apartment above Zimmerman's store. His mother told Murphy that she would pay young Bobby Zimmerman a dime to push his carriage around. "Mother, don't you know who that was?" It was Bob Dylan.
The foreward to his book Mortal Stakes/Faint Thunder was written by Clay Jenkinson who told of going hunting with Murphy around the Lisbon area for the purpose of making a video of the poet as a hunter. That Murphy is a serious hunter can be shown with Jenkinson's story: "I trudged behind him through 10 inches of snow for two or three miles while he worked his mayhem. When I fell through the ice of a slough and got my leg wet up to my pelvis, a dangerous accident on a seriously cold day in December on the treeless Great Plains, he made it clear that I could walk back to the car to get warm if I wished, but that I would be making that walk alone. I lurched after him with one pant leg frozen like the tin woodman. You get so few moments like this in a lifetime: nothing would have induced me to weasel back to the car ." Murphy is in his early 60's, and I have to presume he has shot many birds in his lifetime.
Hosts for the event were Sheila Schafer and Betty Mills. It just so happened that Betty Mills was featured today on the Daily Dakotan series that started running about North Dakota personalities. Her story can be found by opening YouTube and searching for the Daily Dakotan.
Some wonderful smells have started coming from our kitchen today. Mary scurries around getting things prepared. The boys and their families will be home and we will eat well.
The foreward to his book Mortal Stakes/Faint Thunder was written by Clay Jenkinson who told of going hunting with Murphy around the Lisbon area for the purpose of making a video of the poet as a hunter. That Murphy is a serious hunter can be shown with Jenkinson's story: "I trudged behind him through 10 inches of snow for two or three miles while he worked his mayhem. When I fell through the ice of a slough and got my leg wet up to my pelvis, a dangerous accident on a seriously cold day in December on the treeless Great Plains, he made it clear that I could walk back to the car to get warm if I wished, but that I would be making that walk alone. I lurched after him with one pant leg frozen like the tin woodman. You get so few moments like this in a lifetime: nothing would have induced me to weasel back to the car ." Murphy is in his early 60's, and I have to presume he has shot many birds in his lifetime.
Hosts for the event were Sheila Schafer and Betty Mills. It just so happened that Betty Mills was featured today on the Daily Dakotan series that started running about North Dakota personalities. Her story can be found by opening YouTube and searching for the Daily Dakotan.
Some wonderful smells have started coming from our kitchen today. Mary scurries around getting things prepared. The boys and their families will be home and we will eat well.
