Countryside

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I found another book relating the story of a man not ready or even willing to take the step from an old style of life into a modern one: The Good Old Boys by Elmer Kelton.  He is such a good writer of the old cowboy way of life and the old grizzled characters who inhabited that way of life.  The word "farmer" can be substituted, too.

Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer tells the same tale.  Two good buddies go their separate ways when one steps into the business world, becomes a banker, and is elected to public office.  Monte Walsh can't bear to leave his old world behind, and even refuses to ride in a newfangled car.

In an early memory of mine, a man still comes walking across the section and into our pasture on a cold winter day, partially disappearing in blowing wisps of snow, then reappearing again.  He was an old cowboy-type who worked around the community awhile.  Whatever the agreement Art Hansen had with A. C. Weig, he was breaking it, probably starved out or froze out, maybe both.  At any rate, he took off walking across country to our place and mooched a warm supper and a warm place to sleep that night.  Of course, that didn't sit too well with my mother, and she got Dad to take him into town next day, after a good breakfast, I'd imagine.  When gone, he had left a .22 lever action rifle.  I don't remember the circumstances of why, but it got put up high in our basement where I couldn't reach it.  At least I couldn't be stopped from standing there looking longingly at it.  Eventually the rifle got reunited with its owner, and I believe the man drifted on out to the western part of the state, according to Dad.  Not long ago, my mother said of Dad, "He could talk to anybody."  And I imagine he enjoyed having the drifter for company.

In The Good Old Boys, Kelton has his main character thinking to himself after he couldn't remember the name of a failed homesteader, "Sad, how quickly a man's name got lost.  It was hard to make a big enough track that your name was long remembered."  I remember talking to my wife about that very topic a couple of weeks ago and said to her, "At least when I Google my name, some information comes up on the internet."  But there's always an engraved tombstone, too.  I wonder if Art Hansen has one.

Birdhouses, etc

For the last several years we have been seeing turkey vultures.  They're big, ugly, and I hope I never see one circling lazily over my head waiting for me to take my last breath like in the old western movies.  The experts suggested using a scarecrow type of deterrent which seems to work, i. e. they take a taxidermy mount of a vulture and hang it upside down on places they've been roosting.  Besides dropping big splats of yuck, they are a potential hazard to flying airplanes.

Recently, that very thing has happened when a couple of planes struck birds and made emergency landings to check the damage.  And, a couple years ago, a flock of birds ingested into the engines of the plane piloted by Capt. Sullenberger caused him to set his airliner down in the river.  How to ease the problem?  One thing they are saying is not to build garbage dumps near the airports.  The birds like to hang around and scavenge.  Common sense.

I just received "The Sun" magazine which this month talks about garbage. A favorite writer of mine, Wendell Berry, wrote an article titled "Waste" in this issue.  Berry has earned a reputation of being an outspoken environmentalist and makes strong arguments for his case.  Here he talked of watching  huge amounts of garbage floating down the river near his Kentucky farm home as well as seeing daily fifty to sixty truckloads of garbage from large cities being hauled into the landfill located in his county.  He says much of our waste problem is caused by the "intentional flimsiness and unrepairability of the labor saving devices and gadgets that we have become addicted to."

I won't go into any more of his argument, but he makes a good point.  The same magazine posted a couple of good quotes regarding garbage.  Lily Tomlin said, "I bought a wastepaper basket and carried it home in a paper bag.  And when I got home I put the paper bag in the wastepaper basket."  Another person was quoted, "Throw a few chairmen of the board in jail for polluting the air and water, and you'll see pollution disappear quite rapidly. . . . You would also see some pretty drastic prison reforms."

Angels Unawares

As I wandered around outside one day with camera in hand, I remembered a Bible verse that talked about "angels unawares."  After cranking up friend "Google," it whispered in my ear that, indeed, Hebrews 13:2 said in the King James Version, "Be not for forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."   I will still be very leery about that one, though, given the large number of people who are packing pistols nowadays.  If they are angels, I want them to identify themselves.
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The Bismarck Tribune sent me another book to review: Trip of the Tongue: Cross-Country Travels in Search of America's Languages.  Having just received it yesterday, I can't say much about its worth, but in glancing at the index a few of the chapters interest me.  The one named "North Dakota:Norwegians" should be a good one.  The author attended the Hostfest in Minot to report on her findings there.

Another chapter, "Nevada: Basque" reminds me of the time in Elko we went uptown from our motel to eat Basque food at the Star Hotel.  It was quite the experience; as soon as we sat down a waitress brought us a bowl of soup and an plate of appetizers, and this was before we even looked at a menu.  It was good.  I'll have to read and see what the chapter is really about.

Other chapters are New York City: American;  Montana: Crow;  Arizona: Navajo; Washington: Lushootseed, Quileute, Makah;   Louisiana: French and Louisiana Creole;  South Carolina: Gullah;  Florida: Haitian Creole;  New Mexico: Spanish;  and Los Angeles: English.

Right now I've got so many things to read and write, that it's keeping my days full.  I should complain??? 

Fish Stories

 Trae, Our Neighbor with his Walleye

While I roamed around our yard yesterday looking for pictures to snap, Our neighbors Trae and his dad drove in from a day of fishing the Missouri and unloaded their limit of walleyes.  I told him to get one and I would take his picture.  This is the one he grabbed, so I don't know if they were all this size or not, but I especially liked the story his dad told,(with a straight face).  He is a school principal, and given my experience in that same profession, we cannot tell a lie.

This how the story went.  He caught a big one and just about had it when it got under a rock and broke the line.  Lost!  Later on he caught another, and as he reeled it in, here comes the other one with it,  twisted up on the line.  Two in one!   Trae's mother asked if we like fish.  Oh, yes, we do!  And sure enough, a little later Tina comes to the door with a beautifully cleaned sack of fillets.

I used to fish quite a little, have owned two boats, and still have a bundle of gear in one corner of the garage.  The fishing trip that still stands out in my mind as the best one took place on The Lake of the Woods in the spring of 1973.  After three years  as high school principal in Dunseith, I was a total burn-out and when this trip came up I jumped at it.  George Bunn, Ray Bartholomay, and I drove up to northern Minnesota and met up with an acquaintance of George's who owned a large fishing/pleasure boat who graciously took us out on the big lake.  We never caught fish of any size, but we caught a lot of them, and I still can taste that walleye fixed on Shake and Bake and washed down with gallons of beer.  It was a relaxing interlude before I jumped back into the fire and took another administrative job.  

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Our friend Ole always gets accused of being the dumb one, but how about when he fooled the game warden:
Ole was stopped by the game warden just as he was leaving the Lake of the Woods with two buckets of fish.  "Let me see your fishing license." . . . "Oh, Sir, I don't have vun, dese here are my pet fish," says Ole . . ."Pet fish?" . . . "You betcha, every night I take dese fish down to the lake and let them swim around for awhile.  Den I whistle and dey yump back into the buckets , and I take dem home." . . . "That's a bunch of hooey, fish can't do that," the warden says. . . Ole looked at the warden with a real hurt expression on his face and said, "Vell, den, I'll yust show you den.  It really does work." . . .  "OK, I've got to see this," says the warden, really curious now.  So Ole poured the fish into the lake and stood waiting.  After several minutes, the game warden turned to Ole and said, "Well?" . . . "Vell, what?" . . . "When are you going to call them back?" the red-faced warden says. . . "Call who back?" Ole asks . . . "The fish!" . . . . . . . "What fish?"

Junkyard Buicks & Other Stuff

It's fun to drive around the countryside and find interesting sights.  This old Buick takes me back to the year I graduated from high school.  A little uncertain as to its model year, I searched the internet for pictures of '59 and '60 models.  It appears as if this number could be either one.  It sat out front in the junkyard, and I'm sure the owner was showing it off in hopes of finding a classical car lover to buy and restore  it.
. . .
Quotation hanging on my office wall:

Tho' much  is taken, much abides; and though
We are not that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are . . . 
from Tennyson's Ulysses
. . .
I started wondering what was going on in 1959 and did some looking on timelines. Ike was president . . . Alaska and Hawaii admitted into the Union . . . First photocopier, Xerox 914 on market . . . Castro took over in Cuba . . . Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper killed in an airplane crash on their way to Moorhead, MN and Bobby Vee was the fill-in act . . . Dodgers won the World Series . . . Coors Beer Co. introduced the aluminum beer can . . . Texas Instruments applied for patent on Integrated Circuits . . . Barbie Doll was introduced . . . China took over Tibet . . . Ford won a battle with Chrysler to call its new car "Falcon" . . . "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton topped the charts . . . The first missile-carrying submarine, the USS George Washington launched . . . Rod Serling's Twilight Zone started . . . Chubby Checkers sang "The Twist" on the Dick Clark Show . . . Ford quit making Edsels . . .

 

Double-Takes

Fort Rice School & Outhouse

I saw something a few days ago that has been rolling around in my brain, but I just couldn't be sure if I saw it correctly.  I thought I saw in Barnes and Noble this title: Donner Party Cookbook.  Now at first blush that seems innocuous enough, just another cookbook, right?  But stop to remember what the  Donner Party was; it was a group of pioneer travelers headed west in wagons who were stranded in a mountain pass by a blizzard that blocked their passage. Trapped all winter,  they ran out of food, and resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Did I see it correctly?  You betcha, I did.  I looked it up on the internet and there it was, Donner Party Cookbook.  For me I thought instantly of cannibalism, and a sort of ghoulish urge led me to think the title was humorous.  Well, I still think it is.  The book looks legitimate enough, contains some history of the period, and does list recipes that people of that period followed.  I don't think recipes for human flesh were included.

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Some "double-take" signs -

- in a dry cleaning store - Thirty eight years on the same spot
-outside a country shop - We buy junk and sell antiques
-in a cafe - Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager
-in a loan office - Ask about our plans for owning your home
-on a telephone pole - Are you an adult who cannot read?  If so, we can help
-in Arkansas - Take notice: When this sign is under water, this road is impassible
-at a private school - No trespassing without permission
-in a maternity ward - No children allowed
-in a clothing store - Wonderful bargains for men with 16 and 17 necks
-in a funeral parlor - Ask about our layaway plan
-at a highway diner - Eat here and get gas
...   ...   ...
 A joke
A man walks into a bar with a giraffe, takes a stool, the giraffe does the same.  They proceed to order drinks, one after another, well into the night.  Suddenly the giraffe falls off his stool and lies unconscious on the floor.  The man gets up and heads for the door.  The bartender shouts at him,
"Hey, you can't leave that lyin' here."  To which the man replies, "It's not a lion, it's a giraffe!"

The Way It Looks From Here

 

My wife said for not having anything to say, I sure do it well.  Now I thought about that one for awhile and decided there was probably a multiple choice question in there.  Here are the choices:

1.) I was the victim of a left-handed compliment

2.) It illustrates the art of the gentle put down

3.) She damned me with faint praise

4.) All of the above

Like many another husband, I just can't fool her with blib-blab.

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I found the barn with the hilly backdrop near Huff, ND.  So many old hip-roof barns look like this or even worse.  One time they were a very common sight but have been replaced with tin sheds.  They stand as historical monuments celebrating a time that has passed

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Speaking of history I enjoyed reading a text and writing a review on this book -  Sioux War Dispatches: Reports from the Field, 1876-1877 by Marc H. Abrams.  The Bismarck Tribune receives examination copies and makes them available for citizen reviews.  Recently I saw the editor's announcement of the availability of this book, asked for it, and found myself the lucky recipient of it in the mail.  The book read well, and I found it very informative.  The author drew accounts from thirty-one different newspapers and dozens of various other resources to piece together a good picture of the period.

I couldn't help but state my own understanding of the period and said, "An often overlooked back story, yet present and significant, threads through these accounts.  With battles fought in the names of generals and chiefs, the soldiers and warriors receive little attention in the histories.

Just enough seeps through the articles to tell us that soldiering in the field during this time was harsh.  With only bacon and hardtack making up their field diet, scurvy set in.  Illness and injury went untreated.  Men traveled and slept through blizzards, mud, drought, mosquitoes, and pelting hail lacking adequate shelter...."

It was little wonder Custer's command suffered defeat, "The soldiers and their mounts were undernourished and exhausted from their march and Custer's cavalry could not maneuver well in the area of the final showdown."  So the Deseret News concluded, "The simple truth is that General Custer went out to slaughter the Indians, and the Indians slaughtered him."

Just musing

I've never had much desire to attend a Broadway play, but  in the case of Magic/Bird I would make an exception.  Their competition and friendship exemplify the way things should be. Unfortunately, the "critics" aren't liking it too much.
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Information overload is occurring now.  I sometimes think a person would be better off not listening to the news.  North Korea still acts like an outlaw that has never been arrested.  They will have to send out a posse. . . In politics if someone sticks their foot in their mouth, a roar of false indignation arises.  The latest on that one Mrs. Romney being called out to be quiet because she's never worked a day in her life. . . A Florida congressman gained attention when he said there were 80 communists in Congress, he being a republican and they democrats.  I remember McCarthyism. . .  The guy who shot Trayvon probably wishes he had never gone vigilante with a gun. . . I was steered to an article in the Business Week magazine of January 19, 2012 that carries the brash headline "The Man Who Bought North Dakota."  Reading that makes it easy to see why our state politicians keep fetching this oilman's coffee and polishing his boots.
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The Tribune regularly carries the Richard Cohen column.  As the years pass I'm developing a growing respect for President Eisenhower and today's column added to it.  The editor of the newspaper that Cohen began working for as a young  man assigned him to cover an exhibition of Ike's paintings at some gallery.  For some reason Cohen found himself the only reporter there, and who should come out of a side door but Ike himself.  Ike spent time with him and walked through the gallery.  History tells us that Ike was an amateur artist and not too good, but Cohen tried to flatter and patronize him and asked of one painting just what was the symbolism he painted into it.  Ike didn't bite.  Cohen quoted him saying, "Let's get something straight here, Cohen.  They would have burned this (expletive) a long time ago if I weren't the president of the United States."
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It's raining.  We needed it.  Only half an inch or so fell, but things already look greener.

Beauty in Black and White

While in the Bismarck Public Library today I picked up the Western Horseman magazine as I waited for my wife.  The front cover featured an action picture of a horse and rider and was rendered beautifully in pencil.  When Mary was ready I called her over to have a look.   I've forgotten the artist's name, but he is an accomplished artist.

Another good pencil artist is Don Greytak from Montana.  I met him once when he exhibited at an art show in Fargo.  He told me you can't do it any simpler, all you need is a pencil and a piece of paper.  We have a few of his prints hanging on our wall, and I have seen them in many places.

 I'm still amazed at the quality of old time black and white pictures taken with cameras as simple as a Brownie.  They had good lenses, even the cheap ones.  When it comes to reproducing  the pictures 50-75 years after they were taken, detail comes out very sharply.

A joke mentioning the colors of black and white features our friends Ole, Lena, and Sven.  Ole plans to take Lena out that night and when he gets home from work he goes upstairs to where Lena is standing in the middle of the bedroom -  naked.  "Lena, vhy are you standing in the middle of the room naked? - - - "Oh, Ole, I have absolutely nuthin' to vear!" - - - Ole walks over to Lena's closet and opens it.  "Lena!  Vhat do you mean you have nuthin' to vear?  Here's your white dress, here's your black dress, hello Sven, here's your red dress. . . "

Of course, all of the foregoing blib-blab is a poor attempt to introduce the really important item.  Our daughter-in-law forwarded a picture of her black and white diploma awarded by the American Board of Family Medicine stating that she is now certified as an M.D. in Family Medicine.  She and her family have traveled down a long road to get that piece of paper.  They will now move to Fargo where she will establish a practice and our son will continue on with his college student personnel work.

Sailing

 

We were probably the only two people in the U. S. who had never watched the movie Titanic.  Yesterday we joined the crowd.  It so happened our son and wife could not come for Easter dinner because of an illness in the family (dog had the flu).  So we looked in the movie schedule and Mary picked it out, the 3-D version.  Undoubtedly a good movie, I didn't particularly like it because one dramatic scene followed on the heels of another so that I could never relax.  The date it sunk: April 12, 1912, one hundred years ago.

Reminded of a trip I took once on  a ship, I dug out this picture taken in Alaska in the fall of 1968 as I stood on the dock waiting for it to arrive.  The ship was named the M. V. Wickersham and was a working ferry on the inland passage.  I had driven up to Alaska a week or so before but decided it was not for me to stay with winter coming on.  I drove from Anchorage to Haines in time to catch a ride.  I bought a ticket and surrendered my '66 Impala which the dockworkers drove in the hold with other vehicles.  Quite the experience it was!  The ferry system is a working system for Alaskans to get from one port of the state to another or move commerce along or haul sightseers like me.  Not a very large ship, It did a lot of rocking and rolling in the rough water.  Prince Rupert, BC was my  getting off 30 some hours later, a trip I've never regretted or forgotten.

To celebrate our 25th anniversary, we traveled north  to Alaska on Carnival Cruises which proved to be an entirely different experience, strictly tourist.  Each day we would float into a different port, disembark, and walk through the tourist trap businesses set up and waiting for us.  Anyone for Brazilian sapphires?  Some of it was authentic, though, such as the narrow gauge railroad to the top of Whitehorse Pass, a trail where thousands of gold-seekers once walked up to fail at prospecting. Another interesting stop was church at the Diocese of Alaska cathedral in Juneau, a ramshackle wooden building with squeaky floors and pews.

Other than those two trips, the only other floating I've done was in fishing boats.

Changing Your Mind

I belong to an organization called the Tanka Society of America to which I submit a few poems each time they publish their magazine.  Tanka poems are based on a Japanese form written in five lines.  The magazine asks for a poem to fit a theme and last time it was "Changing Your Mind."  They printed this one of mine:

when young
I planned to change
the world
blackened eyes and broken bones
made a new man of me
...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...

Our friend Ole changes his mind from time to time, too.  Take this one for example when he and Lena decided they didn't want to be married any longer.  They went to a lawyer to see about a divorce.  "How old are you folks?" he asked.  "Vell, I'm 96 and Lena is 92," said Ole.  "How come you are getting a divorce now?"  Ole said, "Vell, ve vanted to vait until all da kids were dead."
...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...
One more will be all I can stand - - -

Ole lived across the river from Clarence who he didn't like at all.  They were yelling at each other all the time from their sides of the river.  Ole would yell to Clarence, "If I had a vay to cross this river,  I'd come over dere and beat you up, you betcha."

This went on for years, til finally the state built a bridge across the river right by their houses.  Then Lena said, "Now's your chance, Ole, go over dere and beat that Clarence up like you've wanted to."

Ole said, "OK, by gosh, I think I'll do dat."  He started for the bridge but sees a sign on the bridge and stops to read it.  Then he turns around and comes back.  Lena asked, "Vhy did you come back?"

Ole said, "Lena, I changed my mind about beatin' up dat Clarence.  You know dey put a sign on da bridge dat says, 'Clarence is 13 feet, 6 inches.'  He didn't look dat big ven I yelled at him from across the river."

The Time It Never Rained

I just finished a book titled The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton.  The story centers on a very independent rancher in Texas who in the early 1950's refused all government programs of assistance to feed his cattle and sheep, while his neighbors readily accepted help.  He had built his ranch to be a sizable, profitable operation when an unrelenting drought settled in.  As the story progresses he is forced to whittle down the numbers of livestock and acreage to stay solvent.

A while back I copied a quotation that appeared in the movie Braveheart: Uncompromising men are easy to admire - but compromising men get things done.  As I read the book, I thought that fit the main character well.  While the community admired him for his independence, they also thought he was not being very smart by refusing some assistance.

The scenes of sheep shearing especially rang true for me as they brought back lots of memories.  The main character got extremely irritated when a young man with the shearing crew took hold of a clippers and made lots of bleeding cuts on the ewe's hide.  A good shearer does a clean job.  I can remember the differences in the shearers Dad used to hire, some were easy on the sheep, and some really cut them up.

Elmer Kelton, the author, is a man I would like to have met.  He knew the agricultural industry and because of his career as an ag reporter with a newspaper, he also knew how to write, and write well.  He died a couple of years ago and was held in high esteem by the Western Writers of America.  In a poll of the organization's membership he was voted number one as the best western author, and the book, The Time It Never Rained, as the fourth best western novel.

An article of remembrance praising Kelton appeared in the Western Writers of America magazine.  One of the quotes from admirers stated, "He gave us the real West of stockmen with mulehead horses, wild-hair bulls, broken fences, stove-up hands, the day-in, day-out hard work of cowboying, nutty neighbors - all of it, comic, human, heart-touching.

Family Tree

Occasionally a good television program comes along.  One we're enjoying now is Who Do You Think You Are?  It helps people find their deep family roots.  Two weeks ago the actress Helen Hunt followed trails of family history that researchers on the show helped her trace.  Last Friday Rita Wilson, wife of Tom Hanks, traveled to Greece and Bulgaria to discover her father's story.

She said that her father had always been very quiet about his background, so much so that she knew almost nothing except that he was Greek.  When he was young, his family migrated to Bulgaria for economic reasons, but his life there was not pleasant.  The army drafted him, and as they did to many conscripts, found him guilty of some misdemeanor and jailed him for three years to hard labor.  When he got out, he married and had a child who was half-brother to Ms. Wilson, a brother who she never knew she had.  The wife and child both died, and for undetermined reasons he got sent to a labor camp for a long stay.

Finally he gained his freedom, made his way to America, and lived a much happier life.  It turned out that he left family there in Bulgaria who never saw him again.  And he never talked about his past life.  My wife, who is deeply engrossed in researching her family history, told me that was a very  typical reaction.  They didn't talk so as to protect the family from cruel treatment who remained in the old country.  It seems as if the dictators had a diabolical inclination to punish family who did not escape the regimes.

I found a couple of short stories on the internet that speak of the harshness these people encountered.  One, written by Cynthia Ozick, was titled "The Shawl" and follows a starving mother whose nursing baby received no milk, its only pacifier was sucking a corner of her mother's shawl.  They were being forced along with throngs of other prisoners who knew not where they were going.  Of course, it does not end happily.

The other story, only two pages long, is Isaac Babel's "Crossing into Poland."  It had to do with quartering soldiers amongst the peasantry of the region they occupied.  He slept in a room with others.  He dreamt a nightmare, thrashed about, and was woken by the lady of the house saying he was pushing her father about.  It turned out he was dead, killed by the Russian army.  She said he pled with his killers "Kill me in the yard so that my daughter shan't see me die."  But they did as they pleased and she saw them murder her father.