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.
