Up to Minot

I drove a state car up to Minot today, Tuesday, with my old rider.  She needed to go to the local office up there, and since it's worth a few bucks,  away we went.  I;m amazed at the number of wind towers sprouting up on this side of Minot.  I can't hazard a guess because of the rolling ground, there's always more on the other side of a hill.  They must number in the hundreds.  I wondered how I would like living in the midst of them, like some people do.  They sure ruin a nice view of the natural landscape.  That city is busy like any of those in the oil patch, go, go, go.  As I had lots of time to kill, I took along my laptop and a book I'm reviewing for the Bismarck Tribune - Murdering Indians.

The story is one I know something about from working with the Wm Wade book.  Wade's wife helped prepare the slain bodies of the Spicer family.  I got to know a living relative from Linton who edited a book of all the newspaper articles he could find regarding the murders and the subsequent lynching of three Indians.  The book I'm reviewing really stands on the shoulders of the Linton resident and all his work.

The mail brought me another shipment of books to review from my editor in Santa Fe.  A couple of them look pretty good.  I should work more hours each day to get done the things I want done, but I like my Lazy Boy time, too. 

In my journeys through books I run into some pretty good stories like the one about the boy who twisted the mule's tail.  They say he doesn't look so good anymore, but he's a helluva lot smarter.

TR

I headed west to Dickinson last Friday to attend the annual Theodore Roosevelt symposium. This year's topic was “Theodore Roosevelt and American Culture.” An attendee could get three days of it, but I always just take in Friday's; it doesn't cost anything that way.

The most appealing topic was “TR and John Lomax: The Preservation of Cowboy Culture,” conducted by Hal Cannon of Elko, NV. Cannon is the founding director of the Cowboy Poetry Gathering held every winter in Elko. The main subject of his talk dealt with the work of John Lomax who traveled the country with a heavy voice recorder and collected the old poems and music that made up the cowboy vocabulary of a time gone past. Theodore Roosevelt endorsed Lomax's work feeling it represented something worth preserving.

The more we hear about old TR, the more fascinating he becomes. I recently purchased Doris Kearns Goodwin's new book - The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism. It's a long one, but I'll do some picking and choosing of sections that interest me most.

Dickinson State University counts their blessings that they jumped into the arena and got named as the depository for TR's digital records. It's a huge undertaking, but people will be able to become TR scholars from their kitchen tables using a laptop. Now they want to build a new library to house their efforts. The state legislature approved $13 million for them provided they raise $3 million on their own.

TR's reading habits intrigue people. He claims to have read a book a day – who's to argue. The one great story about his reading habits has to do when he tracked down three thieves who stole a boat belonging to him from the Little Missouri River. He made them walk for three days to reach Dickinson where they could be charged and jailed. As he walked along behind, he read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's book tells of an incident early on in his political career. It was a rough and tumble time controlled by political bosses. He got bullied by three goons one day and promptly decked two of them with his fists and watched the third one run away.

A similar incident occurred in Wibaux, Montana when he established residency in the Badlands. He went into a saloon looking for something to eat. A drunk bully accosted him in there saying he looked like a sissy. He then tried to get Roosevelt to buy him a drink and pulled his pistols. TR knocked him out. The next morning saw the bad guy jumping into a boxcar and getting a ride out of town.

… … …

To Branson

Last week we boarded a motor coach and headed south to Branson, MO.  With a loaded bus, we made good time and landed in Branson mid-afternoon of the second day to start taking in some shows.  The package offered seven shows, and all were good.  My two favorites were Daniel O'Donnell and M-M-Mel Tillis.  Old Mel at 81 still sings well although band members sometimes filled in the high notes he couldn't hit or furnished words he'd forgotten.  In ten more years I'll be in the same shape, I hope as good.

When you get to Missouri, you get to Civil War battlefield country.  In St. Joseph on I-29, you cross under a street named Division Street.  It really did divide something, the North from the South.  Stories abound how families and friends, depending on what side of the line they were, might become shooting enemies in a battle.

Branson is filled with motor coaches from all over the country at this time of the year.  Branson calls it their Christmas season and most of the shows have at least part of the performance oriented that way.  Seven shows in three days goes by quickly and the time comes to return.  We took a very interesting side trip to Diamond, Missouri.  Near there is the birthplace of George Washington Carver.  It is part of the National Park Service and is manned by park rangers.

Carver was born into slavery, but when freed he chose to find an education.  Lucky for him, he was born sickly, therefore spared from hard physical work in the fields like most young men had to do.  He chose to educate himself and had to walk far to find a school that would admit him to classes.  He went on to be an agricultural scientist and found many uses for the humble peanut.  That little fact freed the sharecroppers from the death grip that cotton held over them.  A new crop opened some doors.

I'm ready to return to Branson next year.  It doesn't matter which shows we see, they're all good.
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A joke told on the bus:  Ole was a good artist and was approached by a beautiful young lady who asked him, "Would you paint me in the nude?"  Ole thought a bit and replied that he would have to ask Lena for her approval.  Later he answered the girl saying he would.  They met in his studio and Ole began taking his clothes off.  When finished he stood there stripped except for his socks and said, "I have to leave them on so I have someplace to wipe my brushes."