End of Another July

 Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.  Will Rogers

It's been awhile since I dusted off some of my old poems.  I found this one that I'd almost forgotten I'd written - 

I just heard Tom T. Hall sing

"Back when gas was thirty cents

a gallon."  For a dollar

I could buy seven glasses

of beer, then dream nightmares

of dancing with, fat, boozy,

foul-mouthed women.  Good neighbor

below us just mowed leafy

spurge in his horse pasture,

and I bought a rich armload

of books at my favorite

thrift store where a college prof

keeps them lined up on their shelves.

Epic fires eat at Texas

and I still write of blizzards

stalling wagons trains back home.

Then there is this one, probably the most thoughtful one I've ever written -

We were drinking beer in Herb's

when Walter said, "Your dad should

have kicked your ass more often

just as far as I'm concerned."

Walt was a World War II vet,

a gunner in a bomber

who told of watching bullets

bounce off the armored belly

of German jets he shot at.

He flew thirty-some missions.

How could I argue with him?

Just maybe he knew something.

Then I looked beside Walter

to the next man.  He'd once said

a man could have walked ashore

on floating soldiers' bodies

killed while attempting to land

on gory foreign beaches.

He rarely spoke, yet his eyes

looked at me saying, "He's right."

The next in line at the bar,

a D-Day paratrooper,

spoke cheerfully, masking facts

of his war - hearing screams

of Germans after he threw

explosives in their concrete

bunker.  His box of medals

sat unsung, collecting dust.

In spite of his easy laugh

his eyes pierced this guy's know-it-

all attitude to say,"You

have a lot to learn yet, boy!"

Though my spirit had weakened

from this beating I'd taken,

I could still stand at the bar.

My eyes settled on the vet

who hosted a metal plate

in his head for which he'd paid

a piece of his skull and brain.

The crew of his tank had stopped

to cook coffee.  A sniper

traded his bullet for the flesh

of this man, neutralizing

forever his reasoning.

Those unfocused eyes watched

me through a clouded beer glass -

was I friend or enemy?

the one who had wounded him?

I had entered this man's world

thinking I was an equal,

but this cadre proved harsh worlds

apart from mine existed.

That ragged line extended

further down the long counter,

and men's faces became blurred.

Each had his private story

and bore sore wounds in body

and mind.  Retreat from their hell

was the better course for me.

Years have passed and none remain

to share their stories and shame

me into humility.

It is this I remember.

Pretty Flowers

I'm spending most of my time researching topics that interest me, all at the expense of a shaggy lawn, broken garage door opener, and a host of miscellaneous other jobs I should take care of. But none of those are much fun. I got steered into some website information Monday night by a friend with common interests and is a veteran researcher. I told him if he ever runs into information regarding horse buyers in this country during World War One that I'd appreciate any tips. He went right to work when he got home and found sources without looking very hard. The website is chroniclingamerica.loc.gov and draws from historic newspapers. I looked at a few Bismarck Tribunes and found a number of interesting tidbits, ie one article headlined West Now Being Drained of Horses where one paragraph stated, “Probably 6,000 to 7,500 horses are being shipped out of Montana and northern Wyoming monthly, all destined for war service.”

* * *

Quite a stir with “Rolling Stone” magazine when they pictured the young Boston bomb maker on its front cover. When I was last in Barnes and Noble I picked up an issue, but not to read about that. No, I wanted to read an article featuring Willie Nelson. You gotta love that guy. He must have completely disarmed the interviewer with this joke: A man went to the doctor for a checkup. Says the doc, “You're going to have to quit masturbating.” “Why?” says the patient. “So I can exam you.”

* * *

That same morning we went to Denny's for breakfast where a young native American gal took our order. The restaurant was very busy, and I remarked in my sometimes heavy Norwegian pronunciation of things, “You look bissy.” She looked confused, looked around and said, “I'm not Bessy, I'm Alva.” After explaining my sloppy pronunciation, we all had a good laugh over it.

* * *

Sometimes I think news people must feel trapped in a whirlpool from which there is no escape. I'm talking about the birth of a new royal baby in England. Now that is very nice, but how much of it do we need in this country. Watching Mika on Morning Joe, I'm sure she feels that way. She as much as said so, but then reverted into some more baby news.

* * *

I've been reading good books lately.  Richard S. Wheeler from Montana writes of the West,and the last of his I read was Bat Masterson.  Wheeler was a newsman in his earlier life, and often uses a newsman as a character in his stories.  He really is a wordsmith.  Now I picked up his Richest Hill on Earth, a story about mining in Butte, Montana, and sure enough, a newsman gets right in the middle of things.

Lookin' Good

What with such a late spring , the flowers in Mary's garden got off to a slow start, but now she thinks they have reached their peak of beauty, and that's not bad.  What was it - three months ago that we had such a deep snowfall.  Most people had put their snowblowers away and had their lawnmowers ready to go.  It's a good thing I went around the yard yesterday morning with my camera because I came upon a running water hose she had forgotten about.  I suppose the extra water bill will just come out of my allowance.

*     *     *
 Speaking of the wife, I drug her kicking and screaming to The Lone Ranger on Sunday.  It took a couple weeks of pleading, but finally she relented.  Of course, what were the first words she spoke as we walked to our car after the movie, "I really liked it!"  There are some good laughs in the story.  Tonto always made sure to feed the dead crow he wore on his head for good luck.  A little fantasy is good for anyone.
*     *     *
An article in this week's Time magazine finally educated me as to why there is a big environmental pushback trying to prevent the Keystone Pipeline from being built - that stuff is really gunky and dirty. 
*     *     *

What's with the television station in California that reported on the pilot's names of the Korean airplane that came in for a hard landing.  There must have been a bunch of slugs running around in that studio and in front of that camera to say these names out loud: Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee F__ , and Bang Ding Ow. I choose not to fill in the blanks on the one name, but it's easy to figure out.  If that's not outrageous enough, here is another to add to it.  A newspaper in Chicago wrote the headline "Fright 214."  They got in trouble because it was perceived as a slur to Asiatic pronunciation of an English word.  

*     *     *

The Zimmerman case in Florida brings out more racial anger.  Of course, mobbery erupted in protest.  And our role model,  the Senate argues.  The House of Reps argues.  No one gets anything done.  I spent a little time the other day looking at a magazine in Barnes and Noble - American Cowboy, August/September - and read an essay written by President Jimmy Carter in honor of John Wayne.  Of course, with Carter being a liberal Democrat and John Wayne being a conservative Republican they were bound to disagree.  But Carter liked the man immensely.  Here is a quote from that article: What I learned from him as we engaged during my tenure as president was that patriotism, policy debates, even major disagreements about the nation's direction need not be hostile or personal or contentious, and that no matter how much we disagreed, we had more in common than our differences might suggest.   If only we could have people like that around today.  The democrat Tip O'Neill and the republican Ronald Reagan fought during the day but were great friends at night.  Something seems to get in the way of that occurring today.

*    *     *

Ole and Lars were working for the city public works department in Fargo.  Ole would dig a hole and Lars would follow behind and fill the hole in. They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one digging a hole, the other filling it in again.  An onlooker was amazed at their hard work, but couldn't understand what they were doing. So he asked Ole, "I'm impressed by the effort you two are putting in to your work, but I don't get it -- why do you dig a hole, only to have your partner follow behind and fill it up again?  Ole, the hole digger, wiped his brow and sighed, 'Vell, I suppose it probably looks odd because ve're normally a three-person team. But today Sven, who plants da trees called in sick.'"

Whatever comes to mind...

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” - C. S. Lewis

What better way to start a blog than to see a picture of a pretty, young lady hard at work with an important task.  This, by the way, is my little granddaughter so seriously intent on her work.

I'm still processing in my mind the convention I just attended.  People we meet there might just be the most important reason for going.  At one evening banquet I sat with a couple from California whom I found to be very interesting.  As the meal wore on I mentioned that I was interested in the history of horse procurement in the Midwest by buyers who looked to supply military needs in Europe during the first world war.  On the battlefields, horses and mules suffered the same fates as infantrymen, i.e. wounding, gassing, injury, and killing.  Even though my grandfather never talked much of his experiences in the Meuse-Argonne, he did mention to one of my cousins how he hated to hear the screams of the wounded horses in the night.  These were horses that couldn't be put out of their misery with a simple gun to the head.  They were horses trapped in "no-man's land" between the two opposing forces where no man dared to tread.  Their fate was to suffer until finally succumbing to their wounds. 

The man listened attentively, and then said it was something he too was interested in.  His father had purchased these same horses for the remount depot in Montana.  It was a story he'd always intended telling, but now at 88 years of age with only 10% vision remaining due to macular degeneration, he no longer could.

He wants me to tell it and gave me sources of information to find the nuts and bolts of that period of history.  Then, on Sunday, I received a telephone call from him with more words of encouragement.  Now to start gathering facts and figures.  

My interest developed when I'd read about a famous bucking horse from this region named Tipperary.  He was so wild that buyers wouldn't take him, and men quick to take advantage, started entering him in rodeos. A book named Tipperary had earlier been given to me by the stepmother of the past Governor Schafer, Sheila Schafer. 

I hope I have time remaining to finish everything!

Some words on the WWA convention

 For people who watch the History Channel's Pawn Stars show, they will recognize the man with the flat Amish style hat, Mark Hall-Patton.  This picture was taken in the Barnes and Noble store in Henderson, NV where WWA book-signing event.  I didn't sell, but I bought way too many. And then as I lugged the heavy bag into the hotel, I wondered if I would be able to pack everything and get it home.  Hall-Patton spoke to the group twice, here, and the next day at a breakout session at the convention.  He says he will not tell anyone what an item is worth and usually doesn't know.  What he does is authenticate it as real or call it fake.  As for the show, he said it is produced.  That is, an interesting subject is lined up and then they call him to come in, something which takes a half-hour to travel from one of the three museums he manages.  People were interested in the personalities on the show, mostly the old man and Chumlee.  Is the old man as grumpy as he appears?  As a matter of fact he is, but he suffers from migraine headaches and has a reason for it.  Why does Chumlee stick around with all the guff he takes?  Don't worry about Chumlee, he's laughing all the way to the bank.  We passed the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop one day in the bus when it was 111 degrees.  I guess some people like to suffer, because a long line stood outside the shop waiting to be admitted.

The mystique of the American mob drew a busload of WWA convention-goers to the National Museum of Organized Crime & Law Enforcement, better known as The Mob Museum, on Thursday, June 27. The city of Las Vegas deems it important, because, after all, its website proclaims, “The Vegas of today wouldn't exist without the mob of yesterday.” Housed in the city's old federal courthouse and post office, the museum's three floors have been re-purposed to hold memorabilia, photos, films, documents, and interactive displays featuring well-known crime figures and some dogged lawmen who pursued them. That the mob continues to draw interest among the public can be illustrated by the accolades given to actor James Gandolfini after his recent death. The character he played was a murderous mobster.

Two .45 Thompson sub-machine guns were used to slaughter five members of Chicago's North Side Gang on February 14, 1929, thus the eponymous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The very brick wall the victims faced when shot in the back has been dismantled brick by brick, moved to Las Vegas, and reconstructed. The profusion of bullet holes in those bricks gives testament to the grim facts of the scene. A glass case displayed one of the guns used. If eyes had not seen, an observer would never have believed that a petite, young lady could pick up a Thompson and begin firing away at a human target in the museum, but assuredly, it did happen that day. It must be disclosed, though, that the gun, however lifelike, was an electronic simulator.

These conventions are very interesting for me.  A person doesn't even know who he doesn't know.  At the Saturday night banquet I sat at a table with some folks, one of whom's name was Andrew Fenady.  It meant nothing until he told me he was a movie producer, and among other movies had produced John Wayne's "Chisum."  He told some great stories about the business and about John Wayne.  He writes a lot of books, too, and gave me one that evening.  I'm halfway through already.  It's a good one.

Another fellow I visited with, William McGee, gave me a very good lead on finding research material.  I told him I was very interested in writing a story centering on the horses during World War I that European buyers came here looking to buy.  European countries couldn't keep the armies supplied because they were being killed off on the battlefields.  He said it was a story he always wanted to tell, but now at the age of 88 and with only 10% vision remaining, he can't do it.  He was knowledgeable of the topic; his father worked as an agent buying those horses. 

 

Next year we head to Sacramento, CA for the convention, and I plan on taking Mary with.  I know she will enjoy it.