Main Street, Part IV

I started running down this track a few days ago when I looked closely at the picture on my wall entitled "Main Street, N.D." Speaking of a track, I'm reminded of how close the railroad track ran closely parallel to the main street, just out of the picture. As a young boy I remember seeing the steam locomotives pulling freight and passenger cars and blowing heavy clouds of black smoke and white steam as they rumbled along. A local section crew was employed maintaining the track and in the depot Earl Farnham served as the depot agent presiding over the freight and passengers coming and going through his world. I'm even further reminded of a little passenger train that ran which we called "The Galloping Goose," and I remember still another fact: I rode its last run in 1961 when I went to Fargo to make a bus connection to return to UND in Grand Forks. Only a few passengers rode with me that day. There was no fanfare for the event when we arrived in Fargo. It just quit running, period. No profit, no service, it had run its useful life.

What actually prompted me to look deeply into that picture of main street was after I had re-read Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem "The Deacon's Masterpiece or That Wonderful One-Hoss Shay." The buggy, or chaise, that he wrote of must have been similar to the buggies in my picture, and I wanted to have a look. An avowed Unitarian, Holmes wrote this in 1858 to poke fun at the Puritan theology of the time. An internet search turned up many discussions of the poem that begins

"Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then of a sudden it..."

The deacon of the church built it so it wouldn't break down. He built it from the very best of materials so that each part was as strong as every other part. In Holmes' view, the shay works well until it ... went to pieces all at once, and nothing first, - just as bubbles do when they burst. It was built in such a logical way that it ran a hundred years to a day.

Holmes' humorous indictment of religion was adopted by the field of economics, too. The term "one-hoss shay" is used to describe a model of depreciation, in which a durable product delivers the same services throughout its lifetime before failing with zero scrap value.

I thought long and decided there is another application, too, for the little towns and schools that run along quite nicely for long periods of time, and then, by the time we realize what's happening, we have nothing left except the memories.

Main Street, Part III

A few odds and ends remain from the notes I took at the Heritage Center. People in the Sheldon area have always shown the tendency and ability to take care of matters themselves. I couldn't help but notice this. "A movement is on foot for a farmers' elevator at Anselm and $6,000 stock has already been subscribed. Fred Wall, Jake Kaspari and other leading farmers are pushing the project. There is strong talk among farmers who have money to back their talk of a farmers' elevator at Sheldon also."

Maybe dimes were scarce and this was a high enough price but a store advertised a three pound can of beans for ten cents, and sirloin steak cost fifteen cents a pound.

A drunk in the town drew attention to himself as noted by this story in the February 28, 1908 issue: "John Burke tired of the quietude furnished by farm life, peacefully strolled into the village last Saturday afternoon. Unintentionally, he partook too freely of the 'White Eye' and became hilarious, so much so, that it was necessary for Marshal Mougey to delve out a few handsfull of law before Burke would really give in. Burke, not liking the idea of remaining in the cooler over Sunday - which, in reality, is the finest kind of cooler at this period of the year - finally decided to hire a livery to take him to his abode, so John let him off easy. This is Burke's first visit to Sheldon since the episode of a few weeks ago."

And another animal story: "Billy, the brown spaniel belonging to P.J. Hoff, is no more. A few days ago a neighbor drew a bead on him and plunked one pellet of cold lead into his frame. This disagreed with Billy to such an extent that he expired on Wednesday morning. Billy was a good-natured, harmless dog, ever ready for a little fun with the boys and seemed to especially enjoy chasing thrown base balls and stones."

And one more story about animals appearing in the June 5, 1908 issue: "Sheldon is to have a circus here Friday, June 19. This will be the first circus that has ever showed in this town ... There have been one or two miserable little affairs camp here, one had a coyote and a badger and the other a few horses. Tom-Tom the largest elephant in captivity will be here..." A news blurb followed the appearance of the circus and told of how they had gotten into town late and had to dispense with the parade. They had gotten lost on the trail from Milnor and lost time.

One more blog on this topic to follow...

Main Street, Part II

All through our high school years we proudly sported the colors of red and black. It was such an ingrained tradition, I doubt if anyone ever gave any thought to the origination of that choice. So I read with interest in the January 24, 1908 issue of The Sheldon Progress just when and how it occurred: "Several combinations of school colors were voted upon for our school colors last Friday. Red and black received the most votes and were the colors adopted." Then, in a May issue, the following story appeared: "The first commencement exercises of the Sheldon High School were held on last Monday evening in the opera house. The background of the stage was a large U.S. flag, draped with red and black, the colors of SHS."

Someone was having grandiose dreams about the future of the school: "Small beginnings frequently have large endings and many of our greatest educational institutions started with very few scholars. Harvard University started upon its career with but three students on its rolls." This statement was a reflection upon the size of Sheldon's graduating class having just one student: "C. G. Bangert, president of the school board, presented the first diploma granted to a Sheldon High School graduate - John Wilson Goodman." The story went on to say: "Next year it is thought several more would be eligible."

A story related to another school carried a Fergus Falls, Mn byline with its headline blaring: "Boy Is Eaten By Wolves." It seems he was kept after school and had to walk home alone without his usual companions. When he never showed up at home his father took a lantern and began to search for him. He came upon a scene where he found two wolves feasting on his half-eaten son.

As I wrote yesterday the horse culture ruled and another interesting story found was: "The old bay mare owned by Mrs. Eastman ... took a notion to be bad the other day. All went well 'til the man driving her stopped and laid down the reins. The old mare looked around and said to herself, 'Well, if these old fools don't know enough to hang on to me, I won't have to hang on to myself.' She immediately dug out and turning short upset the buggy. After this she kicked out the dash board and then once more settled down to the quiet line of conduct which she has been following for the last twenty years."

To be continued ...

Main Street, Part I

I often study a picture hanging on the wall of my study on which someone has written, in a wiggly cursive script, the caption "Main St. Sheldon, N.D." Bearing no date, I will guess it is a scene from a hundred years ago. Trees stand barren of leaves so it could be early spring or late fall. In the foreground I count three buggies and one fringed surrey, all parked and still hitched to their waiting teams. It is obvious that lots of horse and wheeled traffic moves up and down this street because numerous hitching rails line it. Looking even more closely you can spot piles of horse manure, too. Five men in dark clothing cluster around the front of a building marked Restaurant - Pool Room, which is four doors down from another building where its readable sign advertises Department Store. A tall telephone pole about halfway down the street supports five crossbars suggesting that quite a few homes communicate over those lines strung on them.

Our state's Heritage Center has done a good job of preserving much of the past. This interested reader enjoys visiting there to study microfiche copies of The Sheldon Progress and has decided that one hundred years ago the town still supported a horse culture. A large ad sponsored by the Ransom County Immigration Association headquartered in Sheldon wanted men and teams to plow and seed about 5,000 acres which they had recently purchased in the Carrington area.

A local auction offered by the Tregloan Farm five miles north of town listed 35 head of horses because they were downsizing. A free dinner and horse feed were provided. A week later a news article said conditions for this sale were not very favorable. Bad roads kept away many who would otherwise have attended, but good prices were paid for the animals. Emil Kaatz bought the first team sold, and a minister, "getting a bargain," bought a six year old driving mare. Other purchases were made by George Cullen, Alfred Rife and F. B. Grinnell.

This part of the country was still young and road improvements could only be wished for. A news piece in the same issue as the Tregloan sale, March 22, 1908, stated, "The roads are unmentionable in the language of polite society. Rural carrier Shelver started out yesterday on runners and came home on horseback."

Through the reading of several issues many more horse auction sales were listed. Frank Koehler wanted to close out his stock of harness and shoes, maybe because in a following issue this ad ran: "Our harnessmaker, Frank Orvocki, has filled his shop and ware room with the largest line of machine and hand made harness ever had in our town..." A. S. Taylor advertised fencing wire for sale as being "Pig Tight, Bull Strong, Horse High."

The May 1, 1908 issues ran this news: "There seems to be either a horse or cow episode to chronicle each week of late. This week it is Andrew Arntson and Floyd Eastman's saddle horse that holds the stage. On Wednesday Andrew decided to give a little exhibition of fancy riding. The horse decided to give a little bucking exhibition. He stiffened his legs and bowed his back and jumped straight up, and with a look of determination in his eye seemed to be saying to himself, 'If I can't unload this thing in one jump, I can do it in two jumps.' At the first jump Andrew's suspenders gave away and at the second he gave away himself and describing a half circle in the air descended quickly to mother earth. The saddle pony laughed quietly to himself and trotted off. Andrew walked slowly from the scene of activities with rather a crestfallen mien."

To be continued ...

Havin' Fun with Words

I was just sitting here thinking I should try to finish a poem I had started some time ago. With my favored seven syllable line, this is what I came up with.

We've all seen horseback riders
atop galloping horses
standing tall in their stirrups
and throwing coiled lariats
at desperate rodeo
calves. Hell, I've even written
a poem about Bill Dee's
stirrups and how he gave them
to Dad. But many don't know ---
they had to be invented.

You see, Genghis Khan had men
in his Mongolian horde
who needed to have solid
footing so as to drive spears
hard into the hearts of foes
who stood in their path. Bareback
riders just could not direct
desired muscled energy
into victims' flesh without
bracing themselves for the blow.

This concerned the old man Khan
enough so that he sponsored
a contest giving his horde
a rare opportunity:
design a better platform
upon which to deliver
your spears more efficiently.
And so it was, the stirrup
came into being, proving
"there are no gains without pains."

After the Poem

I survived the annual Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Medora this past weekend and was satisfied with the way my presentation went. This crowd likes to be entertained, and for the most part, humor goes over the best. My poetry was on the sober side, but I think I had them with me the whole way. I tried to make a cowboy connection with World War One since it was Memorial Day weekend. My poem fills two typed pages so I will not try to repeat it in this blog. One part of my poem seemed to really connect with the audience:

"Many horses were killed in battle, too,
and with each explosion that blew
more carcasses piled up in view.

There's been passed along this story
of a horse whose praises should be sung in glory,
he had six deep wounds and an eye that dangled - gory.

His driver wanted to shoot him there by the side of the road,
but he couldn't raise his gun to end the episode
because that horse was still pulling his share of the load."

The poem has sparked memories to burn again among descendants of Grandpa Sandvig's participation in the war. My cousin Andrea Sandvig of New York City stumbled onto my blogging efforts, and when I shared the poem with her she remembered that "Grandpa talked a little about the war to me. He said he hated to hear the horses scream and that he was always thirsty."

This morning's mail brought more interesting information. My Uncle Darrel Sandvig of Moorhead, MN wrote to me of the cowboy connection as he had heard it from Grandpa, "He liked to tell the story about a train load of new recruits came into the camp, and as drill instructors like to do, started yelling at them to hurry, hurry and get off the train now. One of the cowboys said I came into this mans army to fight and I might as well get started now, and with a good right hand decked one of the SGT's. Next train arrived from Montana, they met it with rifles and fixed bayonets."

I capped my poem with my version of Billy Ray Cyrus' song, "Some Gave All" and ended with a guitar version of "Taps." All in all, I think my presentation was fitting and appropriate.

Scrambled Eggs

This Memorial Day weekend will be a big one for Mary and me, as it has been for several years running. I’ve been busy preparing another presentation for the annual Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering. A call to my doctor got me another prescription of my stage-fright medicine, and I’m ready to go. Who’d have thought, not me, that I’d walk on a stage with a guitar to sing and play “stuff” I’ve written. It went over well enough last year. I know because I was asked for copies of that stuff so it could be used other places. This year I’m turning serious and tying together my cowboy poetry theme with the spirit of Memorial Day. My Grandpa fought in World War I with a division made up of cowboys from the Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, etc. so I’ve had an interesting time researching and writing this all up and think it will fit in quite nicely.
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Yesterday a letter in my mailbox came as a complete surprise. It was from a cousin I hadn’t seen or heard from for 40-50 years. She has been living in New York City and sounds as though she has done quite well for herself. She stumbled upon this blog while cruising around the internet and was prompted to get in touch. She spoke of her fondness for our grandpa so I forwarded much of my Medora presentation to her. Personal letters have become something of a rarity and are always appreciated when they arrive.
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It is dry in this part of the country. Plants and trees are greening up, but strong winds want to blow and suck moisture out of the ground. Weathermen tease us with their percent chance of rain, but nothing has fallen yet. Rain fell in a timely fashion last year and the good hay crop furnished enough so that one can see quite a little carryover in ranchers’ yards to use next winter if the hay doesn’t grow this year.
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Word came this week of the death of a friend’s father. The paper stated he was 101 years old. His life was an example of a hardworking farm life not hurting him but instead probably contributed to his longevity. I have lots of good memories of him.
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Well, I’ve done enough bloviating for this week. I’m tempted to put a counter on this blog so I can find out if anyone besides my cousin reads it. In one sense, it doesn’t matter a lot to me since this is a log, akin to a diary, where I place random thoughts and themes. Forcing myself to write once a week makes my brain work.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

We witnessed an event this past Sunday that made us proud. Our daughter-in-law Robyn received her medical degree and now can write the initials M.D. behind her name. I suppose we can’t take any credit for this happening except for the fact that she is married to our son and he had the good fortune, or is it wisdom, to marry someone with the intelligence and drive to get to this point.

Fifty-nine medical students graduated with this class, and it was fun watching each one being conferred and called with the title “Doctor” as he or she walked away with the diploma in hand. As graduation ceremonies go, it was similar to most any of them. High-powered academics on campus participated in the ceremony, and the keynote speaker had been born and raised in North Dakota who now bore the title of professor and chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

His speech, “Being the Best You Can Be”, was good enough but was sprinkled with the garden variety of jokes such as when he admonished the class to never prescribe sleeping pills and laxatives at the same time. Our son Clint said that the University president usually tells that joke each year, but this fellow beat him to it. To sum the day up, it was an event to which I’ll never be a part of again, so I tried to make the most of it.

Fitness Workouts

I joined a fitness club about a year ago and like to work out on their Nautilus machines three times a week. I haven’t lost much weight but have re-distributed some of it into different shapes and hardness. A few years ago I read a quote by someone that really resonated with me, “The less you do, the less you can do.” It is hard to imagine how soft I was a year ago, and I hope I don’t regress to that condition again. A couple of days ago my father-in-law came knocking at the door asking for help with the water well on his property. It had stopped pumping water, and he wanted to lift the pipes to see if the sandpoint was still in working order. He had rented a jack to do the heavy lifting, but the jack was clumsy to operate, and I was able to act the part of Superman and do most of the lifting myself. I didn’t get stiff or sore from the exertion and will chalk that up to being in fairly good condition. A year ago I couldn’t have done it.

Fitness clubs have become popular, and Bismarck-Mandan have built their fair share. The one I joined couldn’t make it any easier to work out. Their facility is available 24 hours per day for their members. All you need is a key, and you can go in.

There are several of us who are about the same age that show up at the same time, and we have become acquainted in a light-hearted and jovial way. One of those fellows is a particularly good example of how physical workouts are beneficial. He is a diabetic who took several shots each day to function. He told me that when he first started out on the treadmill he was so weak and out of shape that he fell off it after a minute or so and had to be helped back up by a couple of women. With a strong will he has kept at it, and now only takes pills for his condition instead of the shots and can walk on the treadmill for an hour each session.

“The less you do, the less you can do” philosophy has become something of a goal for good living with me, and I am trying to apply that to mental exercise as well. This damn aging process steals plenty from a person and I’m working hard at staying functional for as long as I can.

A Funeral

He would have liked his own funeral if he could have been there I thought yesterday as I drove home. Today my thoughts still linger with that high school classmate whose sudden passing shocked us all. Many friends and relatives attended and mourned his passing. The site of the service was a small Lutheran church standing in the lonely countryide where he made his home. It filled quickly, and the overflow sent to the dining room swelled so that those chairs soon filled leaving only standing room, which itself was elbow to elbow. Someone, a clergyman perhaps, had placed a head of wheat in the breast pocket of his suitcoat. It seemed an appropriate symbol, both of his life as a farmer and of the church’s message of birth, death and resurrection.

Forty-eight years have passed since we graduated. The ceremony was the first event ever conducted in Sheldon’s brand new gymnasium. We had fun in school; studying was never held in high esteem by many of us. Whenever members of the class gather, we share stories of the antics. The memories remain. Now the school district has joined with a larger neighboring district and left our old school building vacant. It has been sold to a private concern with some grandiose plans. I drove past it yesterday. Besides various piles of junk and old buildings that the new owner has seen fit to pile on the grounds, he has also cut a large hole into the end of the gym and has driven trucks onto the floor to pile things on. Our time there has passed. Someday that building will tumble to a pile of rubble much like the old Catholic school building in town that you can still see if you know where to look.

We are faced now with the fact that the friends we made there have started to pass on just like those old times passed on. His father died last winter, but his body had not yet been interred, and the sad fact arose that the father and the son were going to be buried on the same day. Rest in peace, old friend.

Ithaka

Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome. — Arthur Ashe

I ran across the above quote someplace, and it let me remember a favorite poem of mine entitled “Ithaka” by Constantine Cavafy. Ithaka was the Greek city that Odysseus, the wandering hero of The Iliad and The Odyssey, kept trying to go home to. How many years pass by in the stories? I think he traveled and experienced great adventures for about ten years before he finally made it home to his wife, probably just in time since men of the community were trying to woo her. The poem reads, in part:

When you set out for Ithaka
ask that your way be long,
full of adventure, full of instruction.
...
Have Ithaka always in your mind.
Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
But do not in the least hurry the journey.
Better that it lasts for years,
so that when you reach the island you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.

Ithaka gave you the splendid journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She hasn’t anything else to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka has not deceived you.
So wise have you become, of such experience,
that already you will have understood what these Ithakas mean.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many’s the time when I have reached some goal, I find that it did not satisfy me all that much. It was the getting there that was memorable, not the owning it, or reaching it, or seeing it. I have both The Iliad and The Odyssey in my personal library, and I fully intend to go back and read them. The message in them is thousands of years old, but it still stands today.

At Rest

Last Friday evening we attended a geneology program at the Heritage Center in Bismarck. The speaker was well-acquainted with his subject and has spent a good deal of time and effort in pursuing his own family lineage. He spoke of the crowded cemeteries in the eastern part of the country and the tendency to start using the cremation option. He had an Italian background and has traveled back there researching some of his long-dead relatives. In that country tombs are stacked on top of the ground, maybe five deep. They cannot stay there forever because when the family’s 40 year lease on that space expires and if it is not renewed, the bones are removed to make room for another deceased person and are placed in a common ossuary to rest for eternity.

Our part of the country does not feel these pressures (or does it?). There is an old cemetery just south of us a mile or so that seems to be in the way of progress. The city wants to build a new water tower on its acreage, and they are in a fact-finding process now. Never were there many buried there, but it sits on a 40 acre piece of ground that a farmer in the 1970's decided to clear and farm over. Several of the tombstones were buried or pushed aside, but due to some misunderstanding in the terms of the lease, he never got in trouble for desecrating the site. One of the stones still visible carries the inscription, “Stranger, call this not a place of fear and gloom. To me it is a pleasant spot, it is my husband’s tomb.”

I know of another farmer some years back who in a similar vein decided the stones of a burial ground were in the way of his machines so he pushed them aside. I don’t remember many of the details, but I do remember driving by them and seeing them in disarray. It seems to me that when I am planted in the dirt I won’t want to be disturbed or have my marker moved. I want a few people to be able to find me for a generation or two. Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology carries the stories in poetic form of about 250 residents of a cemetery. They seem to have plenty to say in their rest.

Prohibition Ends

An advertisement in the Sunday newspaper caught my eye. A local beer distributor celebrated the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition in 1933 with a half page ad that added a tag behind the old saying “Happy days are here again” with the word “Again.” This comes from a rather large distributorship operated by a family that more than likely makes a nice living from their product. They write elsewhere in the ad’s script, “Thanks for bringing Budweiser back!”

This 18th Amendment banned the “manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes” and had taken effect January 29, 1920. Prohibition ended 75 years ago on December 5, 1933, however some states continued to maintain temperance laws.

I was prompted to recall something I experienced over 40 years ago, probably in June of 1965. After one year of teaching I looked for something to do in the summer months, and it did not take long for someone to approach me — to be a combine operator on his harvesting crew in Kansas and Nebraska. I consented and it wasn’t long before I was herding a beat-up truck with a big combine loaded on it down Highway 281. After a three day trip we arrived in Medicine Lodge, Kansas and parked in a pot-holed parking lot by a truck stop. It had been raining in the area, and we had time to kill. The sign on the building next to us proclaimed itself as being a museum dedicated to the memory of Carrie Nation. Who was that? None of us knew, so a question asked of a local provided the answer. She was a famous Prohibitionist who went around smashing up bars and saloons with her hatchet. She attracted some followers, and they made quite a name for themselves at the time before Prohibition was established. Between 1900 and 1910 she was arrested over thirty times, and a wide-spread barroom slogan of the time was “All Nations Welcome But Carrie.”

She was a leader in the temperance fervor that resulted in the 18th Amendment’s adoption. She called herself “a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,” and felt she followed orders from Heaven to promote temperance by smashing up bars. I remember my time down there and how good the cold beers tasted at the end of the day in the little bar in Sun City, Ks.

Blood Donor

“It is every man’s obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.” — Albert Einstein

On two occasions in my lifetime I have needed blood transfusions. Today, for the first time, I became a blood donor so that I can help someone else who may need it. It seems as though there are different types of donating, something I learned today. I chose to give 2RBC which translates as donating two transfusable units of red blood cells which may be used to help one or two patients. In addition, patients who require multiple transfusions benefit from receiving products from one donor because there is less of a chance for a transfusion-related reaction. With this type of donation I am only able to give three times a year. This 2RBC is apparently a relatively new procedure, being in use for only a few years.

I gave a quick look on the internet to learn a bit more of the procedure and its product. One site said these collections increase the number of red blood cells units available to the U.S. blood supply yet decrease the transfusion risks to patients because they do not have to be exposed to blood from as many donors which is pretty much a rehash of what I learned at the blood center.

I believe the people who draw the blood have the title phlebotomist. The
young lady phlebotomist who did my intake interview apparently had done many of these and tended to read the many questions rapidly with a slurred pronunciation. More than once I had to stop her and ask her to repeat what she had said. I wanted to say, “Miss, I have taught speech classes and drama in school, and I want you to slow down and start enunciating your words!” I have only been a donor this one time; I will have to go several times more before I am caught up with what I have been given.

Damn Politics

Now they say the Democrats are fighting amongst themselves because of the Obama-Clinton race for the nomination. Hillary is behind in the delegate count, but because of her (and Bill’s) sense of entitlement, they can’t take defeat and get on with business. Somebody once said, “I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” I believe that is where we are at with the situation: too many people are a little afraid of the young, half-black, short on experience Obama. I’m sure he would do fine. I know for certain he is a rational orator.

History tells us that Harry Truman admired the story of Cincinnatus, a citizen soldier in old Roman times. Cincinnatus found contentment in his humble farming occupation, but known to have leadership ability, he was asked to lead his country in a time of peril. After the danger passed, he insisted on returning to his farm rather than remaining in an authority position which he could easily have retained.

Both the Bush and Clinton families hold different values from Cincinnatus, and, instead of returning to quiet private lives, they want to retain power, even if it means passing it back and forth. A couple years ago the Bush brother who was governor of Florida was being mentioned as potential presidential material. How about Chelsea?

Another quotation can bring a conclusion to my thesis: “Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.” Wolfgang von Goethe.

Meuse-Argonne

The Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering is scheduled again for the Memorial Day weekend, May 24-25, in Medora, and I am getting ready to participate again. It must be a case of some hidden desire I have to get up in front of an audience and perform something I’ve written. Whatever the motivation is, I have enjoyed doing it. I’ve been in attendance several other years, too, but I do not remember hearing many presentations that relate to the memorial holiday. I thought I would set out to bring something to the event that was holiday related, and after searching about I finally stumbled onto something that I am developing.

My Grandpa Sandvig was a World War I veteran and fought in the bloodiest battle in U. S. history — The Battle of Meuse-Argonne. I knew from records that he was a member of the 91st Infantry Division, 362nd Regiment. A bit of research told me many of the men in it were cowboys from Wyoming and Montana, so it became known as the “Wild West Division.” One more bit of Western lore became attached to that outfit, too. They adopted as their battle cry, “Powder River, let ‘er buck” from a river running through those states, which was sometimes said to be a mile wide and one inch deep. At any rate, the cowboy connection has been made, and I am at work developing the idea.

A great resource I have acquired is the recently published book To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918. Numbers associated with this battle have boggled my mind. The 91st Division alone suffered 4,700 casualties in the short period of September 26-30. The whole affair was made more vivid in my mind after reading Grandpa’s September 26 journal entry in the blank leaves of the small Bible he carried: “6 in the morning. We started the drive about 20 K.M. west of Verdun and we were in 17 days...” Over one million American soldiers fought here on a 26 mile front suffering 120,000 casualties including 26,000 dead.

Yes, I have found the cowboy connection I wanted for the Poetry Gathering. I just hope I can do justice to it from the humble viewpoint I bring to it.

Just emptying my head

How about a joke today. A drunk comes in and orders five shots of Crown Royal, “Quick!” He slams down 1, 2, 3, without stopping to take a breath. The bartender says, “Hey, slow down, that’s expensive sipping whisky.” As the drunk slams down the 4th, he says, “You’d drink fast, too, if you had what I’ve got!” “Well, what’ve you got?” The drunk slams down the 5th, “Seventy-five cents.”
. . .
I agree with the old farmer who told me one time, “The trouble with a milk cow is she won’t stay milked.”
. . .
Ole had been drinking much too often, so Mrs. Larsen suggested that Lena rent a devil’s costume and try to scare him into sobriety. Lena thought that was a fine idea and rented a devil’s suit at the costume shop. The next time Ole came home drunk, there was the Devil waiting for him at the door. “Who are you?” Ole asked. “I am the Devil,” said Lena in a disguised voice. “Vell,” said Ole, “shake hands, brother, ‘cause I married your sister.”
. . .
There isn’t much out of the ordinary happening at our household lately. One remarkable occurrence was the sunrise this morning. At first it reminded me of a live coal in a fire, then as it rose, pink and orange shades glowed all over the eastern sky. With the early spring temperatures coming now, it won’t be long before the trees in the valley will start to bud and leaf and turn beautiful, as it does every year. Many people want to share the beauty of the river, evidently, as there is more and more housing development occurring all the time on the bluffs and along the banks.
. . .
Mary got a new computer system set up and running. The prices of them has definitely dropped, but we decided to go with their set-up costs, software, and warranty which about doubled the purchase price. So much for cheap computers!

...so few words

On our recent trip to the southeast part of the country we passed through Independence, MO and stopped to tour the Truman Presidential Museum and Library. While browsing through the many exhibits, I stopped and lingered for several minutes in front of a pencilled message that he had written to the Secretary of War giving his authority to use the atom bomb on the Japanese homeland in World War II. It simply said, “Sec War, Suggestions approved. Release when ready but not sooner than August 2. HST.” The date August 2, I’ve gone on to discover, was when he’d be on the way home from a meeting with Stalin and Churchill at the Potsdam Conference. He did not want them to know of his intentions while they still met and did not want them to react before that meeting adjourned.

At any rate, I thought that I would like to have had a photograph of that message which is being displayed behind glass, but photographs were not permitted. Not long ago we attended a fund-raising supper at Bismarck St. Mary’s High School where I entered a room where they were also sponsoring a used book sale. There I spotted the historian David McCullough’s biography entitled Truman and promptly bought it. In the photograph section of that book was a picture of the note, and I have spent some time reading and pondering that brief note and all the power its simple message expressed:

So much said with so few words!
That message poured a heady brew
which rose, foamed and overbrimmed
its turbid glass and flooded
those victim cities with waves
of fire and death. A firm hand
holding humble pencil wrote
this enjoining command. Kill
them to save American
lives went the argument, and
as written, so it was done.

The Outer Limits

I can say without fear of contradiction that if you sat down the ten smartest people in the world, you could ask them questions for which they had no answers. I read once that if human knowledge was seen as a growing island and its shoreline was the unknown, it could be said that the unknown grows, too, I suppose because new knowledge lets us ask new questions. I’ve long been a student of how we all come up against the limits of our knowledge for reasons such as aptitude, vocabulary, education, or whatever. I like to try and keep stretching and reaching for new territory. I hope I do not belabor the following metaphor:


Here at a scarred library
table salvaged from a one-
room country schoolhouse I sit
pondering fugitive thoughts.

Running bold and rowdy like
desperadoes in unmarked
territory, they escape
through dry desert arroyos

or ragged canyons that gnarl
and prejudice the terrain.
No map or highway signs
exist, and I walk unread

and unknowing. Pictures carved
on this desk have no meaning;
knowledge hid in the dark is
blocked in this narrow canyon.

Just a Few More Snippets

An old cowboy once told me, “Forgive your enemies, it messes with their minds.”
. . . . . . . . . . .
A big change took place in our household this week, we got hooked up to broadband internet, and I am enjoying myself one heck of a bunch by roaming around the internet as fast as I can read. Now, it won’t be so frustrating to download all those jokes and cartoons that so many people persist in forwarding. Now, I can download ‘em in a wink and trash those suckers before you know it. I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated personal messages, but we don’t get enough of them. With the changeover we have new email addresses, and I will forward them to the people in our address book.

A Montana internet radio station caught my attention a couple years back: www.kxzi.com. I was never able to receive it well with the old dial-up service and forgot about it. I rediscovered it again and have been playing it almost steady when I’m at my desk. He plays blues and bluegrass tunes which I like. He talks very little, mostly songs playing. It’s a great change from the same old stations I’m used to listening to.
. . . . . . . .
Spring approaches. I can tell since Mary is studying the seed catalogs for long stretches each day. This morning she’s attending a workshop at a local plant and tree store getting herself ready for the growing season. She has set a table up in the furnace room and is charming seeds to emerge from the pots with her magic flute and a fluorescent lamp.
. . . . . . . .
I heard a good Ole and Lena joke the other day. Ole was bragging to his buddy Sven about what a good hunter he was. When they got to their cabin in Canada north of Winnipeg, Ole said, “You start the fire and I’ll go shoot something for supper.” Ole walked in the woods only 3 or 4 minutes when he met a black bear. Dropping his gun, Ole hightailed it back to the cabin. Just as he reached the steps, he slipped and fell. The bear was running too fast to stop and skidded right in through the cabin door. Ole got up and slammed the door from the outside and shouted to Sven, “You go ahead and skin that one, and I’ll run out and get us another.”

More Snippets

More this-n-that

I wise cowboy once said, “Don’t name a calf you plan to eat.”
—
I just received an email from a cousin in California. They are making the most of their retirement years. She and her husband are leaving for Jordan soon, and, to add to the trip, will stop in Italy to visit friends. This trip is one of many they have taken to interesting spots in the world.
—
We need to take another step to join the modern world. Our dial-up connection is way too slow to enjoy much of what is on the internet. Since Bush plans on giving us some money back, I think we just might find a high-speed plan. I spend a lot of time in my study with a computer so why not have the latest!
—
Another wise cowboy quote, “Don’t corner something meaner than you.” I am in the middle of writing a poem about a fight to the death I witnessed as a young boy between a dog and a badger. The dog had been sicced on the wild one, but it was more than he could handle. The fight continued on to its miserable end.
—
I am reading a biography of Gerald R. Ford written by one of the newsmen assigned to reporting on the president. They became friends, and Ford told him much, so much that Ford swore him to promise, by jerking on his necktie, that he would not divulge the content of their conversations until after he died — Write It When I’m Gone by Thomas deFrank. Ford told him what he thought of Carter, Reagan, the Bush’s, and Clinton. Interesting.
—
Today is Valentine’s Day. I drove to our neighborhood store to buy flowers and a card. It so happened there were three of us in the same checkout line with flowers. I was amused by the gentleman behind me who said he just bought her a new car and thought that should be good enough. But no! He thought she was worth it, though. She’s been with him twenty-one years. The first one lasted nineteen.

A Real Message

The political campaign gets stale and starts smelling like dirty laundry. The candidates beg us to let them lead, and someone will get the majority of votes one day, but I wish it would hurry up and be done. Self-appointed experts, one and all. Having spent a working lifetime in education, I took plenty of classes from professors and read lots of books proclaiming wisdom in certain fields. After awhile it all started ringing hollow.

Yesterday, though, I listened to someone who had suffered a terrible rite of passage whose words carried lots of weight with me as well as most of the large crowd who heard her. She had EXPERIENCED the message she brought. Immaculee Ilibagiza spoke at the annual University of Mary Prayer Day to a crowd of about
2,500. She told how her life was dramatically transformed in 1994 during the Rwanda ethnic-cleansing genocide when she and seven other women huddled silently together in a cramped bathroom, three feet by four feet (Yes, 3' by 4'), in a local pastor’s house for 91 days! (Yes, 91 days) They were hiding from machete-wielding killers who were hunting for them. While in there her family members were killed along with about one million other Rwandans, mainly because they were not of the right tribe.

I still can hear her say “... just to feel the wind on my cheeks.” She had been denied that sensation for three months, and it was memorable for her to feel it again. She came to the United States, married, became a mother, and now works for the United Nations. Her message was one of forgiveness and how she had discovered the meaning of unconditional love — a love so strong that she was able to seek out and forgive her family’s killers.

Snippets

Snippets

Leave it to a cowboy poet to make this comparison: women are like cowpies. The older they get, the easier they are to pick up.
—
The granddaughter of President Eisenhower stated that she will support Obama in the election.
—
Place a Christian army in the middle of Muslim territory, and you can expect problems.
—
Harry Truman thought politicians should pattern their lives after Cincinnatus, a Roman patriot farmer, who was persuaded to lead his country in a time of peril, won the war, then willingly gave up his authority to return to his farm and plow.
—
The Mormon leader just died at the age of 97 years and had said about his longevity, “The wind is blowing, and I feel like the last leaf on the tree.”
It reminded me of the O. Henry short story entitled “The Last Leaf.” A man, very ill, lay on his hospital bed and noticed a vine outside his window losing its leaves to fall winds while his life slipped away commensurately. When the last one would fly he knew he would die. That night, an artist painted a leaf on the wall and the man, spotting the fake the next morning, survived his crisis and lived on.
—
For the first time in my life I voted in the caucus. Obama received my vote. I was one of many.
—
Newsweek magazine reports that in 2004 John McCain and Hillary Clinton had a vodka drinking contest. (Honest...2-11 issue)
—

Reid's Poem

If I ever reach the Pearly Gates and give an accounting of my life to St. Peter, there will be many things I will not recall. Much of it is too mundane, but I will be able to recall major events and personalities that have inspired me for one reason or another. I will recount here one of those events and the personality who gave shape to it. The person and I became acquainted a long time ago with him being a high school student and me being the high school principal. My tenure at that school lasted three years, after which I left for other places and things to do. Our paths did not cross again until a time two or three years ago.

Standing in my front yard in the dusky sunset of an early fall day a pickup stopped and a young man jumped out and strode towards me with his hand outstretched in greeting. I recognized him almost right away and called him by name.

We visited for a long while that evening and I was uplifted by his bright, positive attitude, yet saddened when he told of the tumor in his brain. He had apparently experienced quite a struggle with his affliction, and I thought he spoke with a wisdom that was beyond his years. Some months later I got news that he had passed away, but he left me with the seeds of a poem that I am sure he never had time to write. I dedicate it to him.


Reid’s Poem

It’s funny the things that stick
with you: the bleat of a lamb
in a snowstorm, the whistling
of a blizzard in the eaves,
a meadowlark’s song in spring,

or spoken words that linger.
Reid, you stopped to talk and left
rich thoughts that beg to be etched
deeply into lines of verse.
You shared tales of the cancer

you carried inside your head,
plus proud news of family,
a business, and your horses —
draft horses you liked to hitch
and drive in the countryside.

There, I’m sure, you reflected
on your fate to form this line:
“I wonder what old men think
when they lean on a fencepost
and look out across the fields.”

Some months later, you succumbed,
but those wistful words still haunt
me. I’d said, “That’s poetry,
have you ever tried to write?”
“No, but I’ve thought about it.”

You knew there was little chance
to grow old or write poems,
but there, reins in hand, that scene
floated dreamlike through your thoughts:
you, leaning, looking, yearning.

Florida Trip - Part 4

Odds and ends of the trip are still bouncing around in my head so I’ll have to empty them out on this keyboard. I looked in a mirror when we got home to see if the water I drank from the Fountain of Youth had had any effect. Unfortunately, the only change I could see was a little more flab jiggling on my neck. I think the guide there fibbed when he said he was 256 years old. That water didn’t even taste very good!

One of the last coffee stops we made was at Clear Lake, Iowa. Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Richie Valens died there in that plane crash “the day the music died” while they were en route to Moorhead, MN for a concert. I wonder how many times Waylon Jennings thought about it. He gave up his seat on the plane for one of the others who wasn’t feeling well.

In the visitor’s center at Stone Mountain we visited with one of the employees whom we learned to be a grandniece of Bill Langer. Our discussion reminded me of the book in our library THE DAKOTA MAVERICK authored by Agnes Geelan, and now I intend to reread it.

Plains, GA was not very big so we could not miss seeing Brother Billy Carter’s gas station where he and some of the good ole boys hung out. It doesn’t seem that long ago when television cameras focused on Billy and made him out to be a big buffoon. I wonder if he really was or was he just dumb like a fox? Loads of peanuts sat waiting to be unloaded just down the street. Across the street in a little country store we ate peanut flavored ice cream that was very good, and at the Carter farmsite we picked pecans off the ground and ate a few.

In St. Augustine at the Lightner Museum we saw a great collection of artifacts and antiques. One of the items I studied closely was a carved mirror frame hanging near the entrance. It was done by one of the recognized masters of woodcarving, Grinling Gibbons. A high-end art studio sat in one of the outer hallways. I thought it looked too uppity for me to even enter and look. The manager happened to have the door open and heard me express my misgivings. She said in a British accent, “Oh, bring your bloody wallet and get in here!” She was fun to visit with, but I didn’t dare touch anything. One of the paintings carried a $15,000 price tag. I think they went much higher than that. Her expected sales pitch, “Art has done much better than the stock market.”

One of the couples on our tour found themselves second-in-line to a bank robber. They stood in line behind some guy who handed over a bag to a teller and told her to put the money in it. The teller walked away and left the robber and the couple standing there. The would-be robber realized his bag would stay empty and took off. I don’t think our fellow travelers got their banking business done either. A few minutes later we saw cops all over the area. I wonder if they ever found the bad guy.

I think I can write the last line about our trip and shift my thoughts to other matters. We traveled with a busload of genial folks and saw a good deal of new country. I’m already looking forward to next year’s trip to the southwest. Mary sent the deposit in yesterday.

Florida Trip - Part 3

One thing is very clear: wherever large crowds of people gather there occurs a flood of concrete and asphalt to cover the land. Maybe if I’d have listened more closely I would have heard how many acres are covered over by Disney World, MGM Studios, Epcot Center, and Sea World. The loss of the natural world is the price we pay. I see it occurring every time I pass through a growing Fargo where some of the richest farmland in the world disappears under that hard blanket. (Today’s Bismarck Tribune carries an article about the burgeoning price of farmland.) At the Epcot Center it was gratifying to see soil scientists experimenting with different methods of food production.

I marvel at the architecture of the Arch in St. Louis and the method used to build it. I wondered out loud how they found workmen to work on its dizzy heights and dangerous conditions and heard a response from one of my trip mates, “There’s always someone willing to work for wages.” I’m uncomfortable at the top; my claustrophobia really kicks in up there, but I never want to miss the experience. I think of the NE trip when Dick Huebner and I happened to look from the small window atop the Washington Monument and saw the President’s helicopter land on the White House lawn. The First Couple got out and walked across the lawn towards a small group applauding their arrival. If I had stayed on the ground, I would have missed that scene.

Beehives and ant colonies have nothing over the John Deere manufacturing plant in Moline, IL. The complexity of making and piecing together all those parts into a functioning, dependable farm machine boggles the mind. In graduate school I learned about system analysts and can imagine that is one place where their talents are used. The costs for this technology grows and is reflected in the prices charged. A showroom featured a large combine and tractor, each priced in the third of a million dollar range.

Anheuser-Busch brews oceans of beer in St. Louis, and it is only one plant. They have others. I quit drinking alcoholic beverages many years ago but still enjoy an occasional bottle of O’Douls, their non-alcoholic version. It’s their stable of beautiful horses that I think of when I hear the name Bud mentioned. While in the stable a couple other trademarks roamed among us looking for pats and scratches, their spotted Dalmatian dogs.

Well blogsters, I’m going to wrap up my impressions of our recent trip with one more blog.

(Florida Trip - Part 4 to follow)

Florida Trip - Part 2

In eighteen days a load of folks on a tour bus can see and experience many things: an Irish pub in Omaha; Truman Library in Independence, MO; the Arch and the Budweiser Brewery in St. Louis; the Hermitage (Andrew Jackson’s home) and Nashville city tour; Stone Mountain in Atlanta; Pres. Carter National Historic Site in Plains, GA; Georgia Agrirama; Disney World; MGM Studios; Epcot Center; Sea World; Arabian Knights dinner theater; Kennedy Space Center; Dayton Beach Speedway; St. Augustine with its museums, old buildings, Spanish fort, museums, and Fountain of Youth; Great Smoky Mountains; Ripley’s Aquarium in Pigeon Forge, TN; Black Bear Jamboree; John Deere plant tour in Moline, IL; Redlin Art Center in Watertown, SD; etc.

Historical sites always rest highest on my list of attractions. I believe our stop at the Truman Library was my fourth, but each time I see and remember something different. This time it was the brief, simple note in a display case which Truman hand wrote approving of the use of the atom bomb. I confess to feeling a bit emotionally overwhelmed and had to linger in front of that world-changing decision scrawled on a yellowing piece of paper; such a simply worded note had unleashed so much destructive power. With each visit, I find humor with his mother-in-law’s thinking that Truman was not good enough for her daughter to marry.

Truman’s humble beginnings are matched by Jimmy Carter’s. A tour of his boyhood farm home and the town where he was raised proves that point to me. And, even after rising to the top, he has never forgotten his roots since he still resides in Plains. Local residents told us he spends 75-80 percent of his time there and said the day before our arrival he had ridden his bicycle downtown to eat lunch. He was scheduled to teach Sunday school the next day. I kept looking down the street hoping he would ride in again.

I got an entirely different feeling at Andrew Jackson’s home. While I have little or no knowledge of Jackson’s boyhood beginnings, the Hermitage and its grounds spoke of wealth. In a history book, I found this passage regarding him, “Jackson was a land speculator, merchant, slave trader, and the most aggressive enemy of the Indians in early American history.”

The same author, Howard Zinn, also said, “Jackson was the first President to master the liberal rhetoric — to speak for the common man.” At any rate, he did permit the burial of his favorite slave near, but not in, the Jackson family plot.

(Florida trip - part 3 to follow)

Florida Trip - Part 1

I’ve just experienced the blur of 18 days rushing past me. Was I gone that long or was it just a dream, maybe a time-warp? Assuming it really happened, I’ll have to tell the tale. I think I’ll begin with the last: our group’s stop at the Redlin Art Center in Watertown, SD. We’ve visited there previously, but a comment Redlin made in his center’s introductory film struck me for the first time, something I experienced when I first started writing this blog. He said, “When you first start out you’re embarrassed at baring your soul.” I, too, was embarrassed at first but have gotten over that since I like to tell the story as I see it.

We’ve become fond of bus trips with 40 other people and the Farmers Union with its “Willer Way” of conducting them. If we were to drive to all the sites we have visited these past several years, we never would have gotten there. Always, the historical sites are the biggest draw for me, and one stood out because I’d been thinking about something a few weeks before I was reacquainted with it. An attraction in Georgia called Agrirama featured lots of century-old machines, buildings, costumes, etc. At the entrance stood a “Road Patrol” which was a small road grader that we would use for smoothing out the washboards on our roads. I had written a poem (with my usual seven-syllable line) about my experience with one, and when I saw it sitting there I had to step on its platform and reminisce.

The Road Patrol

The Greene Township road grader,
scaled small enough for horses
to pull, sat rusting in trees
until someone searched it out
and hooked a tractor to it.

Here’s where I enter the scene:
driver, pulling straight-away
while Dad stood on rear platform
working blade angle and depth
to smooth the washboard bumps

that banged and chattered a car’s
chassis so hard your teeth shook
and made you wish for a rain
to fall and soften the road bed
so that the little grader

blade could grab some bite and cut
the rough grade to a smooth shave.
The times cried, “Do-it-yourself
if you want to change your world.
No one will do it for you!”

(Florida Trip - Part 2 to follow)

Adios (for awhile)

We have finally suffered through the first of the presidential caucuses as witnessed through the fuzzy filtering gaze of the media. It is good these pundits and critics of the system give themselves something to do, but they surely get in each other’s way when they take their carnival acts out on the road. When they run out of topics of substance to view under their microscopes, they start in on how the candidates dress, comb their hair, treat their spouses, etc. A point in history draws quite a contrast between these times: few people in the country even knew that FDR was wheelchair bound during his presidency. Reporters did not intrude or trespass on the man’s right to keep this one part of his life private. Maybe there was some implicit threat to any media source who “spilled these beans,” but surely some muckraker would have delighted in purveying this information. It was a different time. No one concerned himself with such information.

I will be absent from this keyboard for a time since we will soon travel to Florida (where the temps have dipped below freezing and stiff iguanas fell out of trees). Last year we froze in Texas while the weather remained quite mild here in good ole North Dakota. I have never been in the southeastern part of the U.S. and look forward to seeing new territory. I'll be back in about three weeks.

Haircuts

We keep getting ready for our big trip to Florida. I just returned from the barber shop where I had him shear off a lot of hair. It was just another detail on our list of to-do’s. For some reason I was reminded of other haircuts, ones that I gave. The deed took place in the Wind River country of Wyoming. One evening we sat around visiting in a home, and the discussion came around to haircuts. For some reason, I stated I could cut hair (I must have been thinking about sheep shearing) and the two gentlemen both thought a little trim would be in their best interest. Bravado brought on by beer must have made me do it, but there I was pretending to be the barber. Everything seemed to be all right when I finished. We probably celebrated by opening another can of beer.

This was in the time that I was the high school principal. The next morning I sat in my office doing something at my desk when in walked one of the men accompanied by his wife. Words were not exchanged. Their reason for coming in was for display purposes only. He was nicked up pretty good! The wife who normally wielded a sharp tongue said nothing; he said nothing; they walked out. Never have I experienced a more poignant conversation where no words were spoken! I did not have to confront my other victim since he taught in another small town’s school. A few days later when I saw him I realized he had suffered the same fate. Fortunately, I did keep their friendship for the duration of our stay, but this subject was never broached.

Now, this afternoon, I’m going to the dentist...

Just A Bird on a Branch

When I sit at this keyboard I sometimes think the output only amounts to a bunch of doggerel and drivel, but I’m heartened and encouraged to go on when I read thoughts like the following: “If only the most gifted bird in the forest sang, the forest would be a very quiet place.” The world resounds with the voices of billions of birds, so I’m claiming a perch on a crowded branch, too.

I still enjoy going back to read old journals that I have kept at certain times in my life. Alaska used to hold a magnetic draw for me, and I had to go up there to look around. Here are some entries I made at that time.

“. . . being so far north, the natives of the area made their own entertainment, and I think I must have stayed overnight in one of their inns where almost anything goes. I believe it was at Watson Lake, the location of the well-known signposts, that I spent the night hearing all kinds of funny noises such as footsteps up and down the wooden stairs at all hours plus laughing and giggling behind flimsy walls. Earlier in the evening I had sat in the bar listening to an Indian singing and playing guitar, not well, but with as much emotion as I’ve ever heard.”

Later, closer to Anchorage I wrote “A man — a native — walking along the road catches my attention. He is what I call a typical Eskimo, and he has in his hand what my stereotypical mind should think he would be carrying — a pail full of fish, which he had evidently just caught in the nearby river. He smiles proudly lifting his bucket just a bit to show off.”

“I drive further and see something that is beautiful! The Matanuska Valley Glacier stands shimmering in the distance, and, at first, because it is so striking, I am not sure what I am seeing... The weather is fairly clear now and the sun is shining off the ice...The day is passing and I intend to make Anchorage by evening. So once again I get in my trusty Impala and proceed to drive.”

So, I get into Anchorage late that day and tour around the city and area for a couple of days. “The port area was large and expansive. A large lake on the outskirts was the scene of a busy pontoon plane airport. So the day went. Another night, another morning brought me to the employment office. Long lines met me as I walked in the door. ‘Sir, you’ll need a permanent address before we can process your application.’ Oh, oh. What a shock! ‘Won’t my motel address do?’ I ask. ‘I’m sorry.’ Reflecting on that experience now I realize that I was really a babe in the woods. If nothing else I could have fibbed and made like the motel was my permanent address. But how was a sheltered ‘til now young man like myself who was raised to always tell the truth be expected to be resourceful enough to work my way out of that situation? He couldn’t do it and was shattered. Maybe Alaska isn’t Valhalla, after all. The cost of living up here is frightful and with winter coming I could see my supply of money dwindling rapidly. There was only one thing to do — get out of here as fast as I can to avoid being stranded. I load the car and take off. Somewhere I had heard about the inland waterway where I could load my car on a boat as well as myself and ship straight south...”

More to follow . . .

A Potpourri

Winter has set in here along the Missouri River. I enjoyed watching the river freeze up in stages, i.e. a light skin along the banks, then a few floes bobbing in the current, next those same floes piling up into a solid mass, and finally, the complete freeze-up.
. . .
A year ago we stood under the “Survivor Tree” at the federal building bombing site in Oklahoma City. It was sad to see it yesterday on the news heavily coated with ice and in danger of breaking down. Workmen were trying to get the ice knocked off its branches in hopes of saving it.
. . .
Various voices in the media have accused the Bush administration of not knowing their history, a deficiency that affects decision-making! A glaring example recently occurred regarding the recent usage of “World War III” verbiage. Dana Perino, Bush’s press secretary, under questioning, admittedly did not know anything about the Cuban Missile Crisis. Well, I do! I still remember watching President Kennedy speaking to the nation about the seriousness of the situation. It did not take long to interpret his message that nuclear missiles could soon be exchanged between us and Russia if the situation did not cool down and fast! A heavy cloud of anxiety and fearfulness settled on me that night as well as throughout the country until it was resolved. Even if she’d use the defense that she is too young to remember it, history turned on that event. Ms. Perino certainly is history-challenged!
. . .
I’m going to go back to reminiscing in my journals again, but some of these other things have been on my mind. Christmas fast approaches, and we enjoy enjoying reading the messages that people are sending. Unfortunately, few exchanges of letters take place at other times of the year anymore.
. . .
I’m listening to a CD that just played the line, “...string around my finger, but I don’t know why anymore.” I’m glad I’m not the only one with that problem. Now, if I could just remember what it was that I was going to say next ... I’m reminded of the grizzled old timer who with his lifetime of experience says, “There are two kinds of people — those who have to say something and those who have something to say.”

Journals-2

Thinking about my old journals got me interested in going back to read more of the old thoughts regarding experiences I’ve had. Rummaging around my flotsam and jetsam stored here and there, I ran across my Alaska journal. I traveled up the Alaska Highway in the fall of 1968 because Alaska held an inexplicable draw to which I had to respond, a journey which I have never regretted.

After passing through Calgary and staying overnight in Edmonton, Alberta, I set out on the interesting part of the area, and I wrote: "The miles now carried me into an increasingly north country setting. Farms became less frequently seen, and forests were rapidly taking their place. Yet the highway was still busy, showing the heavy traffic of the vehicles needed to carry on the business activities..." Several hours down the highway the drudgery of driving turned again to some excitement: "Not until I came to Dawson Creek did I become excited again. It was here that Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway was situated. Finally, I thought to myself, I’m almost there. Little did I realize at the time that the hardest and most lonely part of the trip was ahead of me...Now the real journey began. The smooth paved highways I’d become accustomed to turned into the rough gravel surface...To compound the inconvenience, it had been raining quite heavily and, of course, the road’s surface became quite muddy."

I wanted to see new and different sights and I wrote about this scene: "A fantastic sight causes me to stop near Kluane Lake. A break in the weather that day permits me to look about a bit more, and I see beautiful white spots arrayed on a distant hill. I study them and conclude that they are Dall Sheep...I snap pictures with my Kodak and find only tiny white dots with no sense of perspective on the developed film. It is a picture I still carry in my head, though."

This trip was before the days of cassette tapes or CD’s or even FM radios for that matter. I enjoyed listening to my AM radio for company and recorded this: "The radio having been my constant companion is not very effective at certain points. The broadcasting stations are too few and far between so I am forced into solitary periods. No sound but the noise of the road gets very monotonous, and I drive on and on averaging 30, maybe 40 miles an hour because of the poor driving conditions. When I do get radio reception, I am subjected to an entirely different perspective than I have ever experienced. Messages between inhabitants were frequently relayed by the announcers, such as ‘Fred Johnson, meet John Olson at the river crossing at noon Saturday to pick up your groceries.’"

"The miles pass by. Inches are gained on the map. Place names are now behind me — Dawson Creek, Fort St. John, Fort Nelson, Watson Lake, Minto, Pelly Crossing, Stewart Crossing, Whitehorse, Haines Junction. I started out in North Dakota,crossed into Montana, then into Albertan, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and now I am ready to enter Alaska. Milepost 1221.3...My car is loaded with mud clinging onto, under, inside, and all over. I promise myself a wash job as soon as I get to Anchorage."

I’ll have to return to this memory trip next week. Most of the good stuff is still to come.

Journals

Today I checked a new book out of the Bismarck library: The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates. It caught my eye since I’ve done some journaling, and, indeed, this web log is essentially a journal, best described by Ms. Oates herself as "... a place for stray impressions and thoughts of the kind that sift through our heads constantly, like maple leaves giddily blown in the wind..." While this web log was never intended to be a literary masterpiece, I’ve always welcomed any reader who chooses to look at it. Since beginning it over a year ago, I have found it to be a satisfying venture and have received a bit of positive feedback from readers. My writing skills had become very rusty, but these weekly musings give me the forum to improve. At any rate, I went back to some old journal entries I had made to see what ran through my mind at that time.

Today in Mandan it is very cold and windy, and my eye fastened on this entry from January 2, 1973. I was heading back to Dunseith after spending Christmas break at home and got caught in a snowstorm and ran in the ditch south of Alice: "I stepped from the car and was struck by the fierce gale which drove the snow like so many hundred needles searching out the pin cushion that was my exposed face."

I remember being pretty upset at the time I wrote this on September 21, 1982: "Today I dropped Clinton off at the daycare center for the last time. We walked in hand in hand and weren’t received by anybody. A dozen or so kids sat in the television room staring at a black and white picture of some x@&?! and three adults in the room working there had not the time to look or say howdy-do or anything else. So it will be the last time he needs suffer through that torment and intellectual wasteland. At his regular baby-sitter, he bounds up the stairs as carefree and happy as can be, and sometimes doesn’t even bother to say good-bye to me as I depart."

I worked at custom combining in Kansas and Nebraska in 1965 and still retain strong memories of the following entry: "His son had committed suicide. The plan was for him to take over the farm operation from his parents, but burdens too heavy for him to bear had led him to take his own life. Mr. Lake lost his future along with his son’s. His zest for living died there in the ditch with the gunshot. He just went through the motions of putting in a crop and harvesting it. Now the lackluster look in his eyes could be explained. He suffered despair. Another factor compounded his problem. His wife had lost her mind. On one occasion we drove into his yard and saw a once magnificent home needing paint and carpentry repair. The lawn was unkempt and scraggly trees needed trimming. The interior of the house showed some neglect. I felt very sorry for him and what his life had come to."

In a letter dated November 24, 1969 to my folks which Ma saved and gave back to me I have this memory preserved much like a journal entry: "Got the package of lefse today and already ate a couple of pieces — really enjoyed it. The past three weekends I’ve been hunting in these mts. — really enjoyed going out but haven’t gotten anything yet. The 1st weekend we went up north of Dubois. I didn’t see any deer that day but got stuck packing out a quarter of elk that my hunting partner shot the day before. It was really tough going climbing up and down the mt. sides with it on my back but I’m going to get an elk supper out of it tomorrow night for my work. He had a donkey that we were using to pack out the elk with, but she went so slow & could only carry ½ elk at a time. There were 2 elk to carry out so 3 of us each took a quarter."

Well, I’ve gotten interested in my old journals again and guess I’ll revisit more of them in the future. Thanks to Joyce Carol Oates for revving up my curiosity.

A Memory

Sunday we drove down to brother-in-law Mike’s place, something we hadn’t done for awhile, with the pretense of seeing the 200 foot wireless tower that had been erected on a high hill in Mike’s pasture. After the visiting and a good meal, we drove to the tower site. By the time we hiked to the top of that hill I was really sucking air but recovered quickly in the cool, brisk wind and was able to stand enjoying the view of the rugged terrain that spread out below that hill. The whole countryside down there emits a beauty that I am fond of. One of the prominent features of the area carries the name of the Dogtooth Hills. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see the jawbone of a dog filled with teeth drooling out along the horizon. Many of the topographical features of the area carry appealing place names. When you first drive out of Mandan you cross the Heart River, pass by Little Heart Butte, come to a sign indicating Whiskey Butte, see the aforementioned Dogtooth Hills, cross Cannonball River, and then Cedar River.

It is near the place where these Cedar and Cannonball Rivers join that my thoughts took me today. I recently hung on the wall of my study a picture of a man standing in a suspended wool sack who is packing fleeces into it. The man is a relative of Mary’s who lived close to the confluence of these two rivers. I was attracted to the picture because I don’t think I’ve ever seen one depicting this scene which I remember well. Indeed, the only picture I’ve possessed was the one in my mind where I was the one who stood packing wool in the sack. I’ve forgotten some of the particulars, but the wool sacks were 8-10 feet long and held 18-20 fleeces, that is, only if someone climbed in the sack that hung mouth-open on a scaffold and jumped up and down to pack them solidly. I’ve never forgotten how soaked with lanolin my shoes and pant legs got from the natural oil in the wool. Memories of sheep shearing time because of that picture were triggered by Sunday’s drive and remain strong in my mind, and I’ve written this poem to mark those springtime events.

Sheep Shearing Time

A man holding a clattering shears,
straddles an upended ewe,
and bends to strip away
the thick robe of wool
she wore through the cold.

Lambs separated from penned mothers
bleat hungry, lonesome tunes.
Clouds of dust hang
above the milling flock
where a helper
enters to catch and drag
another animal to her clipping.

"Good sheep shearers can do
a hundred head a day,"
goes the dinner table talk,
and this flock of 60
will be shorn by mid-afternoon.

The boy feels drawn to enter
this grown man’s world
and wants to tie and throw fleeces
into the hanging wool sack
and climb in to pack the bundles
so that by the end of the day the boots
he wears, soaked lanolin soft
from the wool’s drenching oil,
bring him another step closer.

The Road Ends

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think..."
by Lord Byron in Don Juan, Canto III, Stanza 88
. . . . .

The above quote from Lord Byron's poetry sets my own mind to dropping words on thoughts which, in turn, caused me to write the following verses. I've long been fascinated with the limits a mind runs up against when vocabulary, thought processes, experiences, etc. do not give a person the tools to understand something. A huge number of words flows through my mind each day, but many of them don't arrange themselves meaningfully into anything that amounts to much. If the words that Byron speaks of do not fall within the listener's ability to understand them, little relevant thought develops. At any rate, here is my way to express the limits and ends that I run up against.

The Road Ends

Just as the road concluded
when I drove to Alaska,

Just as harvesting ended
in Kansas and Nebraska,

Just as the pleasures of youth
abate and erode with age,

So, too, I have always come
to the limit that language
sets keeping alien deeds, feats,
and phenomenon unknown,
unexplored, or unfathomed.

The smooth, paved highway becomes
graveled road which reduces
to a rutted prairie trail
and ends at fenced enclosure,
blocking passage. No Trespassing
signs hang nailed to wooden posts.

For some the road stretches on,
letting them travel regions
where this pilgrim's map sprawls blank.

Empty Arguments

Often it just takes a word to get one’s mind working. When I first encountered the word sophism I filed it away in my memory bank for recall, something I’ve done several times. It’s defined in my Webster’s New World dictionary as being "a wise and plausible but fallacious argument or form of reasoning, whether or not intended to deceive." We’re in the political hucksterism season again where it can be easily observed, and in the run-up to the current war the public was subjected to the false argument of weapons of mass destruction being a compulsive cause.

Sophistry brought us to the present state of world affairs and also takes us elsewhere. A recent Newsweek ran a small 50 word article reviewing the book How Toyota Became #1 which caught the attention of my critical gaze. For reasons, some earned, some promoted through sales pitch, Toyota gained a lot of favor with the American public and people seemed to think they were the best. I always thought they were overpriced, but with buyers willing to give more for something they thought was better, sales numbers took Toyota to the top. But they have problems, too. The little article I refer to talks of engine-sludge lawsuits, more recalls than sales, and a top manager leaving to accept the same job at Chrysler.

A whole category of professionals exists to sway and convince people. Advertising agencies do nothing but peddle propaganda for clients who pay them to do so. Maytag claims their repairmen sit around with nothing to do because their product is so good. I doubt it. Gas stations claim to sell the best gas, but whenever I drive by a certain gas terminal on I-94 I see tankers from different companies waiting in line to load. TV preachers sell salvation for those willing to buy. With so many of them proclaiming that they hold the key to heaven, does it mean folks who don’t follow their persuasion will not get there?

When I was a little boy I remember seeing one particular fellow sitting on a bench on main street telling fish stories and stretching his hands wide to illustrate the length of that fish. Each time he told the story the distance between his hands grew bigger. His was the humorous lie.

How Big Is the Cage?

On my latest trip to the library I browsed through a favorite section, the biographies. I never know which book will jump out and beg to be read. This time it was Merle Haggard's Sing Me Back Home: My Life. I opened it and read in its prologue where he spoke of waking up, extremely hungover, in a prison. It was just one of the many brushes he had with the law, and he had to work his way through them all to reach a certain stage of maturity before he could turn his energy into something more creative and positive, in his case, writing songs and performing. The argument can be made, I suppose, that his early life validates the type of songs he writes. Maybe they are a rebellion against the growing constraints of society.

Recently, I had read a magazine article and made notes where Haggard was interviewed. One of the questions he was asked was what he misses about the America of 40 years ago. He replied, "I miss the freedom. I'm crazy about liberty and freedom, and they've taken all our freedoms away. You can't do anything. Everything's illegal ... People don't seem to realize it. People act like this is the way they want it." I recognize that philosophy as a strong theme running through his songs. I can't help but think about recent trends where the U. S. Constitution seems to have slipped in relevancy, and a small, select group of people in the upper echelon of government interpret or ignore it to suit their purposes. When I studied Political Science I learned that was an oligarchy.

Freedom is a notion that I've always considered important, too. It is one of the themes that catches my eye, especially when I see it shrinking away. I read once what the legal eagle Gerry Spence, the one with the cowboy hat and fringed buckskin jacket, said it about it in one of his books, "What if we have been born in a cage like the polar bear at the San Diego Zoo, and having known nothing else, we accept the cage as freedom?" Dad talks about remembering when highway stop signs first got planted at intersections and how there was an uproar from some who felt a freedom was being taken from them. Of course, there is the concept of protecting the greater good, and some laws need to be in place to protect us. But think of all the laws that have been passed since the stop sign law, and further, the interpretation of those laws. Are our grandchildren being born into a cage that they accept as freedom? Will succeeding generations be confined in smaller and smaller cages? Maybe the concept of freedom is being redefined! These are provocative thoughts!

Do Not Go Gentle ...

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
A line from the Dylan Thomas poem

In the not too distant past, whenever I went to the gym for my almost daily workout, I’d often come home and remark to Mary about a couple of the older gentlemen who frequent that place. I’d tell her how well I thought they were doing even though they were older men. It was quite the event when I discovered their true ages: one hadn’t reached 60 yet and the other was 62. The joke was on me with the glaring fact that I was the oldest of the three at 65!

On a wall in my study hangs a picture of a young boy at the age of two standing with his father behind a harnessed team of draft horses. The year would be 1944. Was it taken yesterday or 63 years ago? The answer is the latter and that little boy would be me. Much more time has passed than what remains to me, but I take my philosophy of life from the Dylan Thomas poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," a line from which I used as the epigraph to this piece.

Death has been the subject of many a poet or philosopher through the ages, and I have never forgotten one quote from the historian Arnold Toynbee: "The Greek historian Herodotus reports that the Persian emperor Xerxes wept after he had reviewed his immense expeditionary force because he realized that not a single member of it would still be alive one hundred years later." It gave meaning to a banner that used to be displayed in the lunchroom of Bek Hall at UND when I attended that school: "All is transitory — Keats." At the time the quotation was too lofty and philosophical for me to give much thought. The more I think about it, the more those words hold meaning for me or anyone else who cares to contemplate them. A person can’t do much about the passage of time, so I’ll keep my thoughts in step with the aforementioned Dylan Thomas.

North Dakota Writers

Last Thursday evening I attended a one-hour presentation by the state poet laureate Larry Woiwode. He did not speak of poetry but discussed the writing of a memoir which he has done well and entitled What I Think I Did. He has earned some stature in the national writing community with his works which I always like to read. The program was directed and produced by Prairie Public TV and will be broadcast tomorrow, Thursday, October 11. With him on the same program was a singer-guitarist who I thought was very good. The musician teaches at Minot State University and writes his own songs. Woiwode had named him associate laureate when he was appointed state poet laureate. I’m looking forward to watching the program again.

In the foyer of the Heritage Center stood a table cleverly laden with copies of Woiwode’s book. Even though I had read it a few years ago, I decided to support this member of the arts community by buying a copy for my library. I stood in line for Woiwode to autograph it and exchanged comments with him. I knew he had collaborated with the poet Tom McGrath earlier in his career on one project and mentioned that I was from the same hometown as McGrath. Woiwode quickly told me to check out the NDSU Magazine, spring, 2003 (on SU’s website) where he had written a complimentary article about McGrath. Here he replicated the acceptance speech for the poet laureate that he gave before the governor, and he said something that shows his admiration for McGrath: "The great poet of our state, the one who should have been its laureate for decades, is Tom McGrath." In fact, he went on to fill the bulk of that speech with reference to McGrath and his work.

Those of us who know and appreciate McGrath and his work know why he never received the honors due to him: his politics precluded him from any positive acceptance by the "honorable" members of the community. I’ve read where McGrath called himself a communist with a small "c". My dictionary defines that as anyone advocating ideas thought of as leftist or subversive. That definition in and of itself can be interpreted very broadly as well as hotly argued. My interpretation of where he stood was that of being against the abuses of ownership who did not show any concern or compassion for those who worked for them. When I first read his book length poem Letter to an Imaginary Friend I was immediately struck by the early passage I've remembered which probably explains the beginnings of his political bent. A harvest hand for the family, Cal, a bundle teamster, befriended Tom, but because he became a labor spokesman for the crew. he received a severe beating from the boss, Tom’s uncle. A passage reads: "Cal spoke for the men and my uncle cursed him./ I remember that ugly sound, like some animal cry touching me/ Deep and cold, and I ran toward them/ And the fighting started./ My uncle punched him. I heard the breaking crunch/ Of his teeth going and the blood leaped out of his mouth..."

Once Around the Circle

Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 3 will be the last day of working as I have for the past six years driving a state employee around this 10 county area since she has accepted a promotion from her regional position to a state administrative position. I no longer will drive on a regular basis but have happily agreed to stand by on an on-call basis and take only an occasional trip. At the beginning of this year I told her I did not care to drive anymore after the end of the year, but this changes things and I might just hang around for awhile. We used to call these little jobs "beer money." Even though I no longer have need of beer money, I can always use a little extra spending money.
.....
Thursday marks one of my favorite days around here; the Bismarck Public Library starts its three day used book sale. It opens at 7:00 am, and I’ll be leaving here by 6:45 to get there. Prices are right: $20 or less buys a whole bag full. Then, that evening, our premier state writer Larry Woiwode makes a presentation at the Heritage Center regarding the writing of memoirs. For a little culture, what the heck, I’m going to go.
.....
Yesterday a couple lines of poetry popped into my head; something I had to memorize in college: "The world is too much with us; late and soon,/Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;/ Little we see in Nature that is ours..." I know I’m conservative (my wife calls me cheap), but when I drive around and see all the junk sitting in people’s driveways, I can’t help but think they’ve overspent and are hard-pressed to make payments on that little-used, unimportant stuff. I wonder how many of them have a library card.

Honyocker & Jehu

When I attended the Teddy Roosevelt Symposium at Dickinson State University, I studied some of the pictures hanging in the hallway that depicted old time North Dakota. The one that most interested me was titled "The Honyocker," a scene where a man walks behind a one-bottom plow pulled by a team of four horses. I had often wondered the etymology of that word but couldn't find it in the 1,700-some pages of my usually adequate dictionary to find its meaning and origin. A good, ole Google search gave me satisfaction. Obviously,its meaning is fast disappearing from the language through disuse, but some lady at www.honyocker.org wondered about it, too, and researched it some. In Standard German the word "Huhn-jager" means hen-hunter; in the Czech language a honyocker is "hunyak" and means a shaggy fellow; in the Hungarian dictionary it is spelled "hunyag and hanyak" and means negligent, careless, sloppy or forgetful; in North Dakota and surrounding states honyocker is often taken to mean a backward, old-fashioned type of rural person; and in the early 1900's the ranchers did not like the homesteaders who broke up the native prairie and called them honyockers, which gave the title to the plowman's portrait I saw.

When I was quite young I can remember hearing that word used occasionally; it stll had carried over to that period --- the 1950's. I can still hear someone using it in a conversation. I knew it to be derogatory but can now be at ease knowing I found its meaning and derivation.

While contemplating this, another word from the past popped into my head --- Jehu, pronounced yay-hoo, as I've heard it. Its meaning still has some use, and I have heard it used occasionally: a fast, reckless driver. Its primary usage is Biblical and comes from the name of a king of Israel in the 9th century, B.C., described as a furious charioteer. I find it fascinating the things a person thinks about on any given day. So much for the 25th of September.

The Old Hometown

Last week I attended a part of the interesting Teddy Roosevelt Symposium in Dickinson and listened to several historians speak on various aspects of TR. It got me anxious to start reading more history of that period and thought the best place to start was with my hometown newspapers on file with the North Dakota archives. The Sheldon Enterprise’s on file go back to early 1885 and that’s where I started. Once I got into reading them it was hard to stop. I wondered if Sheldon’s paper would make any mention of TR, and sure enough, I quickly found this reference in the May 19, 1886 edition: " Theodore Roosevelt, the prominent New York politician, has arrived at his ranch on the Elkhorn in the western part of Dakota where he expects to spend the summer." Other news that interested me in the first few issues I read were notices of General U. S. Grant’s illness and death and the vote of the Senate affirming the dividing Dakota into two states.

The local news, though, was the most entertaining. Some good examples from 1885-86 follow:

"Last Saturday was a lively day in Sheldon. Thirty or forty teams could be counted on Front Street at almost any hour of the day.

After four or five revolver shots, Mr. Creswell’s favorite dog gave up the ghost in front of the drug store last Wednesday evening. He had been poisoned.

Long lines of moving wagons are to be seen passing every day destined to new homes in the west.

Mr. Creswell and hired man were seeding all day last Saturday in their bare feet. Too warm to wear boots or shoes. How’s that for the 4th of April in Dakota.

Five Indians, well armed and carrying two canoes were seen making a beeline northward yesterday. Going to join Riel?

A lady passed through Jamestown, on a train, bound for Oregon, with a revolver stuck in her belt.

K. E. Rudd is setting up a sample McCormick binder, across the street from our office, this morning.

When ordering a pail of beer, be sure and instruct your clerk to see that he gets it fresh from the convenient slop tub, otherwise it might be too strong and make you sick.

Fourth of July to be celebrated at Sheldon in a grand style. A cornet band to be here on that day. Good speakers. Exciting races and games. Processions, etc., etc. and a prominent feature of the day - two balloon assentions (sp) and grand fireworks in the evening. All to wind up with a grand ball in the evening at the new skating rink.

Sheldon shipped the first car load new wheat this year from the field of P. P. Goodman that was shipped on any of the lines of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Herman Schultz was in town Saturday and marketed a wagon load of extra nice cabbage.

Deputy Sheriff Tom Eastman has been having his hands full of wood thieves during the past week. He had four of them on his hands at once. Two paid their fines and the other two landed in the Fargo jail for 10 days.

Dr. Henning sports a new fancy cutter. Tell you what, it’s a daisy.

A team of mules, attached to a cutter, took a glorious tumble in the street, opposite our office, yesterday. The mules were not shod sharp and being driven on the smooth ice in the street, one of them went down and the other rolled clear over him. No damage except considerable scare and a broken cutter tongue.

(And my favorite) A Ransom County lawyer was found dead in his sleigh one day last week. Just how he happened to be sleigh riding, instead of having his hands in a client’s pockets, is unknown, but it is surmised that was because the client had had his pockets emptied by having previously called on another lawyer. His death was doubtless caused by attempting to tell the truth to a jury and then going out in the cold while he was still sweating."

I intend to keep mining those veins of entertaining news and gossip from the old home town papers. It makes for fascinating reading and maybe a poem or two will come from it.

September Miscellany

The weather moderated here on our hill in Mandan. The cool weather feels good. There was a light frost on the rooftops in our neighborhood early Sunday morning, but I don’t think any plants suffered because of it. The weatherman threatens it again in a couple of days. The beautiful alfalfa field below us produced a third cutting. It’s probably the nicest hayfield I’ve ever seen.
..............................
Saturday, September 8 marked the 49th anniversary of the life-changing accident I suffered. I told Mary if there were one thing I could change in my life it would have been to avoid that incident. Often times veterans will not talk of their wartime experiences. In my own way I understand what their silence means, and I will have no more to say of it.
...............................
I’m looking forward to tomorrow when I’m going to Dickinson to attend symposium at Dickinson State University: "Theodore Roosevelt and America’s Place in the World Arena." Dickinson is positioning themselves as a center of TR studies and is developing a digitalized base connected to the Library of Congress for research purposes. They are bringing in nationally prominent people to conduct the meetings, and I sent my money in to participate.

Pride, Empire, etc.

The sermon in church this week was based on the scripture reading of Luke 14: 7-14. It dealt with the teachings of Jesus on humility with the 11th verse holding the key idea where He is quoted as saying "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." At the start the priest related this story: Once there was a frog who wanted to go South and asked two geese on their migratory flight to help. The frog strung a string between his two new friends and clamped on tightly with his strong jaws. As they were flying along a hunter spotted them and shouted up, "Whose idea was that?" The proud frog opened his mouth to boast that it was he, and the hunter ate frog legs that evening. The story ended with a quote from Aesop’s Fables, "Pride goeth before the fall."

As I listened, my mind trailed back to the Newsweek article of last week that dealt with the unsuccessful hunt for bin Laden. The matter of pride seems to enter into the military’s efforts in this hunt, too. It would probably make the most sense to send in special operation units to hunt him down, units (termed "snake-eaters") that could live off the land for a long period of time and poke around the hills and caves of Afghanistan. The author says that military brass, though, doesn’t like "snake-eaters" because they don’t always follow rules or maintain spit-and-polish discipline. Instead, they would like to fight in the open and show off their firepower and new weapons. Therefore, they chose to fight in Iraq instead of Afghanistan. It’s unfortunate the military leadership hadn’t listened to the same sermon I just had.

I’ve never forgotten outgoing President Eisenhower’s warning that we should beware of the military-industrial complex. To further give a person food for thought our public television station last night on their America at a Crossroads series ran a show titled "Inside America’s Empire." It was indicated that the U.S. has a military presence in dozens of countries. The countries of Colombia, Georgia, Philippines, and another in Africa were featured and described to varying degrees our country’s involvement there. Whenever I see or hear the word empire I can’t help thinking of the Roman Empire and its fate.