Snow in August

It's funny how in this August heat and humidity my mind turns to snow, ice, and blizzards, but that is just what it has gone and done. I was talking on the phone with my brother Howard yesterday to see how things are going out there since they plan to move and be nearer their son's family in Idaho. He said he was in the process of losing some weight and for some reason I mentioned to him that I remember seeing a picture of him standing rail thin on a snowbank in the folks' yard when he was a college student. Of course, I used to look much slimmer back in those days, too, but it was the depth and quantity of that snow in the picture that struck me the most.

I think the photo was taken by our mother in the spring of 1966 when we had such a terrible blizzard in early March which shut the whole state of North Dakota down for three days and left mountainous snow drifts in its wake. Dad was attending a meeting someplace and could not make it home which left Ma alone to fend for herself during that time. I was teaching in Bowdon, ND, and I and my roommates were mostly housebound for the duration of that storm. The night the storm began to blow had found us at someone's house so we were surprised to see the heavy snowfall when we left to go home. The wind was kicking up heavy drifts already, and I realized I would not be able to drive my car all the way. I had gotten to the front of a church near where we lived and parked on the south side of a large brick sign on its front lawn. Fortunately, I found after the storm ended that the sign caused the snow to part, (insert an image of Moses on the Red Sea here) and my car stayed clear of snow for the entire time. Many cars were completely buried in town town and often only a radio antenna could be seen sticking out. When the wind died and the sun came out, we found streets completely filled with drifts, so much so that National Guard front end loaders came in to help clear them.

That storm made a deep and lasting impression of those of us who experienced it. I have a book titled One to Remember: The Relentless Blizzard of March 1966. Obviously, the two authors, Douglas Ramsey and Larry Skroch, were deeply affected since they went through the work of compiling memories of the storm in a written form of 661 pages from family stories and photos and state newspaper archives. I read where my cousin's wife, Eileen Larson, near Lisbon was reported to have climbed a snowbank and stepped down on the garage roof and shoveled four feet of snow off the building to keep the roof from caving in. She stated it was touching the hi-line wires in their yard and that it was not safe for their son to play out due to the danger of snow cliffs which resembled the needles of the Black Hills. My aunt, Lorraine Devitt, worked at her job in the nursing home in Lisbon for over 30 hours before she could be relieved to go home and rest.

Story after story, hundreds of them, are recounted in the book. Since that storm I have been a great respecter of their power and fury. Each winter I make certain the trunk of my car holds lots of survival gear. Those hard times might come again when I least expect them.

Lots of This 'n' That

Yesterday I wrote of the war poet Wilfred Owen and his famous poem "Dulce et Decorum Est." I neglected to write that Owen was killed in action just prior to the war's end and that his parents received this news on Armistice Day. I cannot think of a better example of cosmic irony than that: being killed serving in a war he opposed.
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This morning I drove across the old Memorial Bridge to cross the Missouri River but will never have that opportunity again. As of 11:00 this morning the bridge was closed to traffic which will be re-routed over the new span starting at 4:00 this afternoon. The old bridge served its purpose for a long time. Prior to its construction a ferry connected the two cities of Mandan and Bismarck, and only four cars at one time could be carried across, not counting assorted horse-drawn vehicles. I think the old bridge was built sometime in the early 1920's.
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A savage thunderstorm with strong winds woke me last night around 1:00. It takes a lot to waken me, but this one got my attention. Light-sleepin' Mary sat bolt-upright in bed saying, "What was that noise?" She only had to wait twenty seconds for an answer when another clap of thunder cracked. Then the wind came up and all hell broke loose for about half an hour.
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I just finished mashing up a batch of strawberries as per Mary's orders. She defers those kinds of jobs to me 'cuz she says her arthritis bothers. Whatever --- I just love that strawberry jam. It will taste so good!
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I ran across a Garrison Keillor column on yesterday's Salon.com. I love his humor and his way of expressing himself. Among topics he wrote about was being tired from doing chores around his place. But, he said, as long as his mother stays alive, he is still young. She is 94, a "tall tree shading him from mortality." Whenever he wants to feel youthful again he visits his mother and sees his high school graduation picture hanging on her wall. He thinks it's no surprise John McCain likes to show off his 96 year old mother. The problem, though, he says, is that she acts a lot perkier than he. We've got tickets for Keillor's Prairie Home Companion show soon to be in Bismarck. The last time we attended his show was at UND and sat in the upper tier of the Fritz Theater. This time I bought tickets for the main floor, fourth row from the front.

A Latin Quote

Recently I have noted the use of a Latin phrase Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori in several articles. It originated with the Roman writer Horace and translates in English to "It is sweet to die for the homeland." As might be expected that philosophy doesn't have universal appeal. College students in the 19th century added to it by saying "It is sweet to die for the homeland, but it is sweeter to live for the homeland, and the sweetest to drink for it. Therefore, let us drink to the health of the homeland."

The first time I remember coming in contact with the phrase was as the title of a poem "Dulce Et Decorum Est" written by Wilfred Owen during World War I. It describes a gas attack. Toward the end of the poem he says of Horace's poem that it is "the old Lie." From what I've read of the horrendous killing and suffering on the battlefields of World War I, I would guess there were few of those soldiers who thought it was sweet to die for the cause. After telling of one who got gassed, Owen writes in his last stanza:

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Sad News

I finished mowing the lawn for the umpteenth time this year. Mary keeps fertilizing and timely rains keep falling making it thick and lush. If it only weren't so warm and sultry it would be more fun mowing.
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I stopped writing this to answer a phone call from my mother. She had just received word from my cousin Lance that his dad, my uncle, Russell passed away. The funeral will be Monday at 10:30. News such as this always makes me stop and bring up old memories. He loved his land and his cattle and spent many years to build both up. He suffered sorrow such as when his son Merrill passed away much too early, and he experienced joy with the recognition he received for his achievements. As a young boy I always looked forward to the times when he drove his family to our place for visits or when we went to theirs. He carved out a good life from a meager beginning and excelled at what he did. May he rest in peace! He was raised as one of eleven children, and now only my dad and Aunt Evelyn survive.

Their Quest

Recorded history throughout the centuries speaks of the movement of people to find a better life. Biblical stories of these events have been written such as Moses leading his people to the Promised Land. European countries today are experiencing resettlement and mixing of different ethnic groups in their midst. The U.S. certainly has had its trouble with illegal aliens coming across the border to work for whatever wages they can find. Last night PBS on their show POV (Point of View) carried a story of jobless Palestinians crossing the border illegally to find work in a prosperous Israel.

The cameraman stayed with a group of them for an extended period of time as they struggled to get across the border, find employment once at their destination, cook their simple meals, sleep under cardboard or tin shelters, and visit about their dreams for the future. I don't think they played to the camera at all, and their remarks were sub-titled in English on the screen. They were watchful at all times for police and security forces, and one time their campsite was burned down. One of the men broke his ankle getting away, and his companions lamented that he was the only breadwinner for his extended family. You could feel their sense of loss as they watched the flames.

I thought it was high irony, but one of the places they found laboring jobs was in building a Separation Wall which, when completed, would bar them from coming across and finding work in the future. A vision of The Great Wall of China flashes across my mind or the Berlin Wall or the fence being built between us and Mexico. Obviously, no answers have been found for problems brought about from have-nots migrating toward the promise of livelihood. Fortunately, my migrating ancestors made a go of it.
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This morning I watched the "Morning Joe" program on MSNBC. One of the guests was Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Carter administration official, who, when asked what his views were on escalating the war in Afghanistan, replied that he was very worried as to what the outcome might be. I've never forgotten a passage I read 25-30 years ago in the James Michener book Caravans where he wrote that no foreign power had ever invaded that country successfully. Russia found that to be true not long ago.

Plenty of Activities

Yesterday, 7-20-08, Bismarck-Mandan had lots of activities to choose from to spend a relaxing Sunday afternoon. We could have chosen among a melodrama at Fort Lincoln State Park, a violin concert at the old Governor's Mansion in honor of a past governor Art Link, strolling through the zoo, and touring a Parade of Ponds event. We drove over the Missouri River where a huge flotilla of pleasure boats cruised, so if we had had a boat we could have done that. Our choice: an outdoor production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" on the capitol grounds.

Shakespeare's work has never been a favorite of mine, but since his work survives several centuries, there is probably something wrong with my literary tastes. The "Twelfth Night" consists of a quite complicated plot and was very hard to keep pace with since I didn't have much knowledge of the story line. In fact, after returning home, I opened the internet to find a synopsis of the play. It was enjoyable to sit through, though, since I admired the dedication of the cast and production crew for all their hard work. Not long ago I read that a good way to exercise the brain is to read and comprehend Shakesperean sonnets, thought to be as stimulating as working a crossword puzzle or learning a foreign language.

I look forward to next weekend. A chautauqua event "Lincoln, Land, and Liberty" will be held at the new Bismarck State College National Energy Center. Its theme visits three historical figures who played a significant role in the shaping of the United States in the nineteenth century - Abe Lincoln, Walt Whitman, and Frederick Douglas. The presentations are spread over three days, and I intend to be there.

Call of the Wild

In the hayfield yesterday I scared up two coyote pups, not quite full grown, maybe 3/4 size, and probably whelps from the same litter. They showed entirely different personalities and entertained me as I watched from my tractor seat. One was wary and ran way ahead to disappear over a grassy knoll top. The other pup at first showed interest in me and my machinery, but that soon turned to aloofness and disdain. Unfortunately, I came to the end of the field and the show ended when I had to turn away. He had stopped loping along to yawn and begin looking at something else. A distance of only 20 feet or so separated us when we were nearest each other.

A large hawk sailed and swooped to the ground in that secluded field. He'd hover and watch for field mice that my rake exposed beneath the two swaths I pulled together into one large, fluffed windrow. It reminded me of the times I plowed ground under a canopy of seagulls that followed me from one end of the field to the other to dive and peck away at the worms and grubs I turned up.

A solitary person driving a shiny yellow pickup pulling a long, silver stock trailer drove past on the dirt road. I recognized him as the rodeo contractor who furnishes bucking bulls for national bullarama events, his family being the owners of the champion Little Yellow Jacket. I knew they had a pasture near the hayfield where I worked and that he would be one of a very few people who had business here.

It is always refreshing to get away from the city and everything we call civilization and escape to this wild world where few humans disturb it, where wild creatures are at home, and when, after I leave it, their world resumes as before.

Elderly?

My digital exam and the results of my PSA test were good, and the doctor told me to check back with him in six months. After I left his office, I went directly to the state dispatcher and picked up a new Chevy Malibu and headed to Fargo to pick up my rider who had gotten there to her meeting by other means. I don't know if it is old age setting in or not, but I was tired from all that driving and last night at home I didn't feel much like doing anything. As we had headed west to Bismarck in the afternoon, we had heard a news report about a man being rescued from his burning trailer home in Mandan by several policemen. The words of the story spoke of the policemen rescuing an "elderly 63 year old man." I turned to my rider and asked, "Did he use the words 'elderly 63 year old?'" She assured me he had. I could only imagine the copywriter to be a very young person who looked at sixty-somethings in that light.

The day before, Mary and I ate a quick burger in our neighborhood McDonald's. Just a block north sits the large Mandan rodeo grounds and oval race track combo. A good many horse trailers and pickups sat there shining in the warm sun with lots of horses tied in their shade. We didn't know what event was taking place, but just then a young gal came walking out of the restaurant wearing cowboy duds, so I thought she'd know. I asked, "What kind of event is goin' on over there?" "A family rodeo," was her reply. "Oh," I said, "does that mean there is something for all ages to do?" "Yes, even for you old-timers!" She turned on her heel and sashayed away in her tight jeans and ponytail bobbing under her hat. I turned to Mary and wondered if I look like an old-timer. She said, "Well, you do have gray hair."

I guess I'll have to relax and start reading the signs that point over yonder. It's like Springsteen sings, "Glory days, well, they'll pass you by/ Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye/ Glory days, glory days."

More Than One Way to Say It

On the editorial page of my local Sunday paper today I spotted a phrase written in similar fashion by two different writers with two different venues, one national and conservative, the other statewide and liberal. They were both talking about unchecked capitalism and the credit cards used so prevalently by shoppers. Their names are unimportant, but they both see one thing in the same light, one using the phraseology of "the spell of self-involved consumption" and the other wording it "the new worldliness of self-centered materialism." I thought this was a remarkable similarity and underlined them with a pen for Mary to notice as she sat reading and eating her cereal. She seemed only mildly impressed, and I needed to ask her if she was taken with it the same as I was. Apparently she wasn't; all she gave me were a shrug and a grunt.

Tomorrow I check in with the doctor for my semi-annual prostate exam. I've been through this procedure several times and can color the language in two different ways: a digital-rectal exam or a well-greased finger up my butt. Either way, I'm correct.

A poem percolates in my brain and has for some time now. It carries the theme of how things get said. Even though it is unfinished, it reads in part:

...where the newsman's words
have been rewritten,
weakly,
and I read them,
wondering,
is this what he meant
and knew to be the truth?

...where the words and style
of the poet
degenerate,
and its message deflates
to comply with standards
set by scolds and quibblers...

Time to Think

I drove out to the country early this morning to rake the brother-in-law's hay to get ahead of the hot midday sun. The hay still holds moisture from the evening hours, and the leaves and stems don't get damaged when the rake spirals them into windrows. The rough, hilly countryside south of town is beautiful at that time of day because of the way the sun strikes the grass and crops, and it made me wonder just how many shades of green color the land. Johnny Cash probably wondered, too, since after visiting Ireland he wrote the song "Forty Shades of Green."

Driving a tractor back and forth in a field gets repetitious and gives a man plenty of time to think about things. One of the thoughts that kept recurring was a reference that caught my eye yesterday while roaming around the internet. Lee Iacocca, the one who led Chrysler Corp. to recovery some years back, asks, "Where the hell is our outrage? We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course.'"

A Google search turns up countless references to his recent book Where Have All the Leaders Gone? And if one thinks Iacocca should be discounted and is the only one who spouts opposition and disrespect of our country's leadership, he can be steered towards many other references of dissatisfaction. The recent issue
of The Nation magazine carries a lengthy article, "Disaster Capitalism: State of Extortion." The gist of it is "multinational corporations ... systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis." One can easily guess some of the examples the author lists: control of oil fields in Iraq, global food crisis where agribusiness cartels control patents on Genetically Modified Organisms, a housing bill that shifts the burden of mortgage default to taxpayers, etc.

This modest blogger and his blogsite represent only a tiny grain of sand on a world wide beach. I wish I had a large front-end loader and a fleet of dump trucks.

Glory Days

I looked again at the Bruce Springsteen video of "Glory Days" on YouTube and was reminded of why it is my all-time favorite song. The opening scene shows him walking onto a playground with a basket full of baseballs to throw at a target as he dreams would happen if he were a pitcher. The next scene morphs to a nightclub, and he sings of leaving a bar but meets an old friend coming in. He joins him and they start talking of the old days, "tryin' to recapture a little of the glory of ..."

The song appeals to me on different levels, but I'm always reminded of the days when I played on a baseball team. We were young, 5th or 6th graders as I recall, and I can still hear Gary Marsden calling me one day all excited because someone had given him the go-ahead to find enough players to field a team. I've forgotten who sponsored the team, but some group - maybe the American Legion - stood the cost of a navy blue t-shirt for each player with the words Sheldon Midgets printed across the chest. I had equipment, a first baseman's glove, so when I asked Gary what position I'd be given, he told me first base. Wearing that glove often ended up with me spraining my thumb because whenever I caught a hard hit ball it did not have proper support built in and the thumb bent back too far; but I sallied forth, ill-equipped as I was.

We played a few games with Enderlin teams, and I remember a game when Gary Dahl pitched for us. Someone had gotten on first base who proceeded to engage me in conversation, then led off as he kept me talking. Gary thought I was in the game and threw a hard pick-off to me. I never saw it coming and still hear it whiz past me into the fence. He hollered out my nickname "Lefty!!!" as the ball shot past, and the runner advanced to second. It was a lesson learned: always keep my eyes on the ball. I'm reminded further of my second favorite song that begins "Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end."

Tin Lizzie

Returning from the fitness center this morning I tuned the radio to our local NPR station and heard an interesting discussion comparing the Henry Ford era of car building to the present day's, the point being made that ole Henry faced the same kinds of problems with developing his cars: high costs and limited range. That story is being told over and over by the folks trying to develop an electric system of propelling the new models. If I ever wondered where the Model T's nickname "Tin Lizzie" originated, I learned that, too. The name Lizzie was a name commonly used for a work horse, so it does not take a stretch of the imagination to see how it was applied to early cars.

On the afternoon of the Fourth we attended a party at a neighbor's house. One of the guests there was employed working on the new bridge in Minneapolis which replaces the one that collapsed some months back. I asked him how wide is the new structure, and he stated they are completing ten lanes now with the potential of adding another four. Also, provision is being made for a light rail line to be built on its deck. Public transportation, in my mind, must be developed to a much greater extent than it is now. Our trip to Minneapolis four weeks ago illustrated the need when I saw how many cars were trying to squeeze into that city on Monday morning. The future will probably say goodbye to suburban sprawl and hello to inner city renewal and development.

While in Minneapolis, son Clint installed a "counter" so I could tell how many looked at this blogsite. The numbers probably don't lie. There were 402 "hits" this morning, so either my wife has visited it that many times or there are a number of people checking it out. I presume the latter, so being there are a few of you out there who read it just means that I will have to try hard to write worthwhile subject matter.

Every Day's a Saturday

I like to say that this retirement business means every day is Saturday, and I can do whatever I want. A favorite pastime for me is driving over to the Bismarck Library or the State Library or the Heritage Center Research Library or the Mandan Library or even the University of Mary Library. A visit to the Bismarck Library yesterday had me coming away with a book entitled Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends; Two WWII Paratroopers from the Original Band of Brothers Tell Their Story.

The story of the Band of Brothers, Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division in World War II received a lot of attention just a few years ago. I watched the movie made of it several times on the History channel. When I discovered that a fellow Sheldonite, Myron Ranney, was a member of that unit, I was especially interested in knowing more. A quick look in the index of Brothers in Battle lists Ranney four times. I found those passages and was reminded I had read something a few years ago that his father wrote in The Sheldon Progress after Myron had enlisted, the elder Ranney being the editor and publisher of the paper. With a quick trip to the Heritage Center this morning, I easily found in their newspaper files what I was looking for. In the August 20, 1942 edition he wrote:

"A letter came this morning from my son, Myron, saying he had volunteered for the paratroop division of the army. Myron is 19 and a former student of the University of N. D. The letter brought a lump in my throat and made it hard for me to work. He was not forced to go. But he loves his country greater than his own security."

I will have to finish reading the book before I can make any further comments on it, but with every day being Saturday I will get to it. This room in my house I call my Study needs straightening and cleaning, but I'll probably get to it some other Saturday.

More McLeod

While we toured the schoolhouse part of the McLeod Museum, I noticed several newspaper clippings they have collected regarding events and people from that area. One of these articles featured the brother and sister Crandall who lived hermit-like in a shack they'd tacked together somewhere out in those hills. As a child I remember going with my parents to their place to visit for some reason or other. Their dwelling fit my dictionary's definition of ramshackle: appearing ready to collapse, rickety, carelessly or loosely constructed. Their refrigeration consisted of a deep, narrow hole where perishables were cooled. She took the cover off for us to look down there, and I think that the small boy I was kicked some dirt down there by accident, not to be confused with a boy who spits from a balcony somewhere. I'm certain that county social service people would not let anyone live like them in today's world, but these folks lived to be old people so the lifestyle could not have been all that bad. At any rate, I do not write to criticize anything about them. They just represented holdovers from an earlier time and didn't seem to care about entering the modern world.

I'm presently reading the novel Gap Creek by Robert Morgan. This book was an Oprah's Book Club pick awhile back and has received other awards. Inside the cover flap it talks of the young couple "and their efforts to make sense of the world in the last years of the nineteenth century." In my mind I make a bit of a connection between the Crandall's and the people in the novel. The author is scheduled as a featured guest scholar at this fall's Theodore Roosevelt Symposium at Dickinson State University. I am making plans to attend again and hope I get a chance to visit with him. His themes are often of the hill country and its people, the hillbillies, of Appalachia. His poetry is especially expressive as witnessed by the poem "Squatting" which opens with this line: The men in rural places when / they stop to talk and visit will / not stand, for that would make it seem / they're in a rush.

McLeod

A few weeks ago a member of the board of the McLeod Museum visited with my folks who gave to the museum their gift of several of Dad's carved farm scenes. Dad has wanted to visit the museum since then, so on Saturday we took them there. The doors were locked, but a quick cell phone call to Clayton Johnson brought him over to gladly open up for us. The membership of that museum has done a great job in collecting and displaying a large variety of historical items in several buildings. Those buildings and the grounds are maintained well, and for such a small community, it is an attractive collection of history. A drizzling rain whipped by a strong northwest wind threatened a rodeo set up on the north side of town, but as we drove by, it looked like those hardy souls intended to go on in spite of it.

I never did go into McLeod much in my running-around years except for an occasional drive through, maybe to hang around their now defunct feeder calf sale or attend the Calf Dance held in a small hall on main street. We passed by where the sale barn still stands and memories came back of those times, including the fresh smells of strong coffee and barbecues on a bun mixed in with the cries of the auctioneer Col. Fahlsing pleading for just a bit more. I've never forgotten one incident when my friend Jens and I went to one of the dances. While he sat in his car, he'd gotten into some sort of altercation with one of the local toughs who punched him with his fist through the open window. Just Jens and I were there, but the other fellow had a small gang hanging with him. Somehow our placid sheriff Ray O. caught word of trouble and slowly strode over to us. As he walked to the scene I fell in behind him. As luck had it the bad guy was right beside me in lockstep behind the sheriff, too. Those were the days when I was haybale haulin' strong, and since I was agitated and wanted retribution, I took advantage of the opportunity and jabbed my elbow into his side, and then, with a muscled shoulder assist, shoved him over so that he stumbled and almost fell. I kept walking nonchalantly along, and the sheriff didn't even know what I had done, but we never had any more trouble for the rest of the evening, either.

Wife Mary had acquired a bit of the McLeod flavor when she worked in Learning Disabilities and called regularly on the small school which had Mrs. Herbranson as its teacher, she being the one who achieved national notoriety as being the lowest paid teacher in the United States. As limited as the school's resources were, Mary always had positive comments about the school and the job that was being done there.
The Sandune Saloon still operates, and I confess to having patronized it a couple of times. A combination store and post office round out the business establishments, but as the town's brochure says, the population of the town is only 23 residents with another 100 residing in the rural area. There are not enough people to support more businesses.

Before we left the museum, I asked one of our hosts, Ken Kensinger, to lay a museum membership on me. They have plans to expand the museum, and I was sure they would welcome the extra money. I always enjoy driving through the hilly grasslands surrounding McLeod and hope to visit again.

On the Edge of Thought

News of the country and the world ride high in the thoughts of many of us. High energy prices probably dominate the headlines. We've gotten used to the deaths and injuries of service people in Iraq and Afghanistan so that doesn't rate much in the way of coverage anymore. What I think will happen with the gas prices is that we will become accustomed to them, too, and some other matter will replace them. I do believe in conspiracy theorists, and I think they know full well that the mindset of the economy will adjust and come to accept big oil's increasingly high prices. I also believe that we are bound by customs, habits, traditions, and dogma, so much so that we cannot break those chains and can only wish for someone to do it for us.

On the edge of thought, knowledge
and insight lie desert-like
beyond that ragged ridge. Years
squandered, deep understanding
sprints ahead, just out of reach.
Limitless hopes get replaced
by limited achievements.

Thoughts fired by a rising sun
dim, then hide under dark clouds
of tradition and dogma.
Wondering years set in late;
then our heading's determined
not by maps of reasoning,
but bee-lines of prejudice.

Desires of materialism
supercede contemplation,
and because we could not stop
it, the shadow of a life's
day has lengthened twice its height.
Who can bring change to a world
that prevents or resents it?

From on High, Part III

I return to my tale of waste and excreta
when I'd sit in the grass and soil my seat-a.
Days are recalled of the shade tree mechanic
who quickly found things could be problematic.

That's mechanic me under that plow with a wrench
feeling a moist spot, accompanied by stench.
I wondered, "Now, what could that be?"
Then I'd hear a gaggle of geese laughing at me.

Or maybe I'd kneel to feed a bottle lamb,
and then, uh oh, too late I felt chicken jam
soak through the knee of my pants,
setting me off on profanity-laced rants.

And there'd be that rooster standing so proud,
cocky, and crowing. Oh, for a thundercloud
to send down a bolt of white lightning
so I could watch his feathers brightening!

A duck and a dozen ducklings enter the scene
eating and spewing like a mindless machine.
But, one thing, they and the others will be able
to get served up, succulent, on the dining table.

This saga's going to have to cease,
I'm tired of talking of the grease
comin' from the rear ends of these creatures.
Tales of a mess found on outdoor bleachers,

the bombarding seagulls while plowing cornstalks,
or sparrow attacks strolling down sidewalks,
they're all just really part of the game,
and I shouldn't he holding helpless critters to blame.

Farewell, good-bye, so long, auf Wiedersehn,
shalom, dosvidanye, see you later, 'til we meet again.

From on High, Part II

After this short one day interlude
I'll conclude there's lots of latitude
to relate this tale of excrement
falling from places as punishment

for being in a place at the wrong time.
I'll continue with the time I earned a dime
for each pile of cow manure I'd load,
then spread like an a la mode

topping which we used to enrich the fields,
increase fertility, therefore improve yields.
I liked this job more than picking potato bugs
at a nickel a hundred that I'd stuff in jugs.

That was Ma's idea of an incentive project.
Fortunately, I had the opportunity to select
one of the two, so if I had a job to do,
I'd take pitching forks full of barnyard pew.

Now, to a farmboy that isn't such a bad job,
except when it's soft, it oozes like blob
right through the tines of your fork,
splatters on your pants, smell like a dork!

The box on our honey wagon was short,
therefore just big enough to transport
lots of loads to earn coins at ten cents per;
To think, I was the King of Hauling Manure!

But problems arose: beaters on the rear
spread the load when I put 'er in gear,
but when the wind's just right, (don't think it queer)
that "stuff" blew ahead to adhere to my ear,

the back of my neck, my cap, and my shirt.
Oh, the things I did to fertilize that dirt!
The wife doesn't much like this storee,
but there's more coming up in Part Number Three.

From on High

On Saturday we drove thirty miles north to the wooded Cross Ranch State Park by the Missouri River and attended the annual Bluegrass Music Festival. That style of music is a favorite of Mary and me, and we occasionally attend functions of that kind. Events of the day coaxed me to write the following versification as well as reminding me of similar circumstances in which I have found myself.

It was hard to think of a better way
to spend a June Saturday
than to sit in a lawn chair in the afternoon
listening to bluegrass, tune after tune.

Making our spot in the shade of a tree,
we sat facing the stage so we could see
the musicians sing and play their stuff;
they were pros, practiced, not off the cuff.

Soon, I noticed the girls squirming around
and brushing their clothes. What had they found?
Little brown spots had begun to appear,
and if you rubbed them they would smear.

And if you imagined them clumped into goop,
you'd realize that what we had was worm poop.
One self-styled expert looked up and said,
"Box elder trees, to worms it's like bread."

But then he looked again into the trees
and said, "Oh, I see holes in the ash leaves,
too. Those worms don't care what they eat,
may as well stay put and keep your seat."

So we did, finding relief with some gentle brushing;
at home we'd wash them off, scrubbing, flushing.
That wasn't the first time crap's been dropped on me,
but those stories need to wait 'til part two, or three.

It's Friday!

These towns of Mandan and Bismarck are good garage sale towns. Every weekend there are plenty to choose from, and in no way can we get to all of them. Each year I come away with one or two prize buys. Things have been slow this year, though, since I can only claim as my great "get" a dozen Ole and Lena jokebooks. Now, Ole and Lena are my kind of folks, and I hate to see them made such fun of, but that's the load we have to bear. I think this one shows lots of insight when Ole described the difference between modern ladies and old fashioned ladies. "The old fashioned gal darns her husband's socks. The modern gal socks her darned husband." Ole does have lots of trouble functioning in this modern world. He says that anymore he gets nervous about doing chores around the house. He says, "It seems every time I crack an egg open, out pops a pair of pantyhose."

I thought I made a really good buy today when I bought a carved wooden plate for 50 cents. The gal who sold it to me said it came from Romania; her father has been there a couple of times and brought it back. A sticker on the back is worded in a foreign language, so I believed her. What the heck, 50 cents is a small price to pay for such a treasure. On closer inspection, in the sunlight, I now see that it was mostly machine-carved with only a bit of hand-tooled work.

At another stop, I bought a set of "Snoopy" golf clubs for $10 - a wood, an iron, and a putter - for the grandson Luke. That amount was more than I like to shell out, but if we want to see him grow and blossom into another Tiger Woods, we have to pay the price.

To write a conclusion, I hope I'm not getting absent-minded like Ole. One day he poured syrup down his back ... and scratched his pancake.

Pipe Dream

It was time to mow the grass.
Gallon and a half of gas
cost me over six green bills,
think I'll put goats on these hills,
milk the nannies, make cheese
and smell that odor on the breeze.
Spurge spreads in pastures and everything,
so when the goats beget offspring,
I'll rent 'em to the highest bid
so they can eat and get rid
of that grass-chokin' weed.
Hope I don't create a stampede
of goat-hungry folks to my door
asking, "When will you get more?"
I'll set-up and register a brand,
operate with supply and demand,
sit back, and salivate with greed
since I've created such a need
that the money would start rollin' in.
Now here's where the dream will end.
Wife'd say, "We've got cash, mow again!"

The Homestead Act

The original document enacting the Homestead Act of 1862 and bearing the signature of Abraham Lincoln is on display at the Heritage Center in Bismarck. Encased in a low-lighted area it shows its fading age. The President’s signature pulled at me because I yearned to get close as possible to the man and the aura that surrounds his historic presidency.

Passage of this law set in place a westward movement of many Civil War veterans, Germans from Russia, Scandinavians and others. To facilitate railroad development the government granted a huge amount of land to them as incentive for building tracks to serve the newly established communities. So many came to this area that by end of this “Great Dakota Boom” 69 percent of North Dakota’s population came from foreign countries or were second generation descendents.

History says that many of them failed to prosper under the conditions, probably because of the harsh living conditions. Wild animals, lack of trees for windbreaks, crop failures, loneliness and sub-standard housing caused many to leave. Only rare examples of their houses remain. During these past few years I had reason to drive to Linton and saw a couple abandoned houses still standing, part of their exterior walls weathered away exposing the sod walls. On my last trip I looked but think they no longer stood.

My mother-in-law was born and raised in a sod house southwest of here. She told stories of how the walls were three feet thick and she could sit in the window sill to look out. It had a packed dirt floor and each year a new coat of calcimine was painted on its walls. To manufacture chinking material they tramped barefoot in mud.

One of the stories from the lore of the area still amazes me. A family trekked westward to their new land with their wagon. A blizzard caught them in the open. They overturned the wagon to use as shelter where the woman gave birth to a child.

My Recipe

Anyone want to clone me?
If so, here's my recipe:
mix half cup of Norwegian
with one-quarter cup of Swede
and quarter cup of German.
Set stew on hot-as-hell stove
and cook hard to tenderize.
(Remember, watched pots don't boil,
so busy yourself elsewhere.)

Check kettle every few years,
adding seasoning to taste.
Blend assorted medicines,
vitamins, and elixirs
'til stew reaches full flavor,
remove damaged or useless
body parts to purify,
then turn burner off to cool.

As the concoction congeals,
ladle off fat that's floating
to the surface. Add ample
amounts of experience,
mistakes, false starts, and happy
endings. That, my friends, is me.

Things Learned This Weekend

We drove to Minneapolis over the weekend, high gas prices be damned. Clint's family has settled into their home there, and we wanted to see how things looked. When we left to return home by heading west on Monday morning I couldn't help but think where do all these cars heading into the city fit? Incoming traffic didn't seem to thin until we had driven about 20 miles out. The more miles we drove down the highway, the more I relaxed. Traffic and I do not blend well. We stopped at the monastery at St. John's University and bought a couple loaves of the monks' bread - good, hearty whole wheat bread. Our next stop was in Lisbon to visit with my folks.

Dad remembers lots of interesting stories, and it's fun to listen to him tell them. Tales of the prohibition days always entertain me. For a few years his family lived near Nome, ND. When they were getting settled, Art and Emil Kaatz were helping put a cow in a pen in the barn. She fell into a hole and when they inspected it, they found a whisky still nested neatly down in there under a false floor. For a couple of years after that, apparently-thirsty strangers, not knowing the property had changed hands, would stop in the yard asking for Jack.

This story especially amused me. Dad's Grandpa Menge and Joe Spiekermeier owned a still. They must have been on good terms with the sheriff because he called one day to warn them he was coming out to have a look. They showed their ingenuity then by hiding the still up inside the cupola of the barn. In another incident in the sand hills area the Ransom County sheriff must not have been on such terms with moon shiners because when he came out to one place to snoop around they shoved his car into the river.

Prohibition ended 75 years ago, and people of my generation have not experienced the shenanigans carried on during that time. There is always talk now of legalizing some drugs like marijuana to eliminate some of the legal problems and maybe that will come to pass someday, but I don't think the stories surrounding it will be as amusing as those of the homemade distilled spirits that the old-timers can tell.

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.
..........
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.
..........
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.
..........
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.
............
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)