RFD

Our mailbox, standing at the head of the driveway, beckoned us six days a week to empty the newspapers, magazines, cards, letters, bills, packages, and catalogs delivered by our rural route mailman. He would arrive each day about the same time in a cloud of gravel road dust, lean across his car seat to insert our mail of the day, and roar off again to the next box a half mile down the road. This one looks very much like the one I remember,only ours had several bullet holes from someone's target practice. Cream cans made common anchors for the boxes.

45 Years Ago

When I ran across this picture and did some quick math I discovered it was taken 45 years ago. There's a song by my favorite western music singer Ian Tyson that has a cowboy singing this line "Was it yesterday or was it fifty years ago." It was about some lost love, but the line applies to many situations, my hog picture included. That time sure has flown by! A couple years ago I wrote this poem and included it in my second chapbook:

Slat shadows from a snow fence
lay on the backs of my pigs -
120 of them. Their heads are down,
eating, always eating, so much I
had to keep hauling feed pellets
from Newton's Feed Store at X
number of dollars and watch that bill
tally up, but then I had to feed them
to grow so they could be sold as feeder
pigs since they were still weaners.
The brood sows, fifteen of them, came
from a hogman in Owego Township, sand
hill country, some call it Hillbilly Heaven.
He told me They're just full of pigs!,
and I could tell he told me no lie
just by looking at their bulging
middles. I never fed 'em, they run
in the woods and eat acorns,
ground's just covered with 'em.
How much? I ask. A hundred
dollars apiece, and I'll haul 'em
for ya. So the deed got done,
my lot soon filled with litters
of little pigs and grunting moms,
all hungry all the time. I gave
those sows, raised in the wild
as they were, no different
treatment than the hogman gave
them, and they proved their self-
reliance by farrowing an average
eight shoats per. Well, things
worked out well for me, I sold
them when they reached 35-40
pounds each and made a few bucks.
As for the hogman, he hung himself
from one of the acorn trees.

Road Patrol

This glorious morning, 4-4-11! The ever present herd of deer browsed below us again this morning, a flock of geese flew low over the top of them, a coyote skulked in the far corner of the field, and eagles are nesting nearby. The Heart River runs high and fast and a tinge of green starts to color the ground. Spring comes!

The roads and streets are rough and breaking up. It made me think of an activity we would often do on the farm: grade our gravel road with the township's road patrol. I snapped the above picture in Georgia. Dad always called it the road patrol, so when I saw this one I scanned the frame of the machine, and sure enough, the name "Road Patrol" was prominently etched into it.

Some time ago I wrote this poem and published it in one of my chapbooks.

The Road Patrol

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

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

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

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

Home Again

After spending the past week in Minneapolis, we returned yesterday evening and slept the night away in deep sleep. This morning when I looked out our patio door I spotted this sunrise worthy of a photo. The hill on which our house is situated makes for great viewing of the sunrise and I often admire the beautiful ones. Yesterday we left I-94 near Wendell, MN and cut across to Fairmont, ND. Along that route we noticed lots of old time barns and tall corn silos on the farmsteads. One glaring thing was missing though: fences. There were none. The barns and silos stand as monuments to an older time, something I miss when driving through the countryside. The whole of the Red River Valley is mostly devoid of fences, and it's not until we get back here that fences become commonplace again. More will probably be said about the old days at another time. The sunrise was beautiful !

Making a Cake

 

Lucas

Lucas participates in many athletic events and has medals and ribbons to show for it. He is five years old.

Lily

Here's Lily putting on her apron to help out in the kitchen. She is two years old.

Dumpfnudeln

Mother Mary and son Clint search the cupboard for all the "necessaries" to make and serve up a batch of Dumpfnudeln (steamed noodles) that he requested of his mother when we came to Minneapolis. They turned out tasty; grandson Lucas even got into the act when he got to "punch down" the dough earlier in the day. Now if only someone would get interested in learning how to make lefse.

Mpls, MN

We are spending the week in Minneapolis, Richfield to be exact, helping out with the grandkids
because their daycare closed for a week of spring break. It is not a problem keeping them occupied. They're both smart, and at only 2 and 5 years of age can be shown many things that they understand and work with. Luckily for this old driver who doesn't like to drive in traffic there are places to go and things to do that can be reached on city streets. In the picture they are decorating bird houses that Grandma made Grandpa build while still in Mandan.

Spring Weather

Weather is often on our minds, especially so when storms surprise us. We didn't need this heavy, wet snowfall in March, but nothing can be done about it except clean up. An article I recently clipped from the March 18 issue of our local paper bore a Riverton, Wyo byline: "Search and rescue crews have successfully retrieved an elderly fisherman trapped on a floating block of ice on a lake in Fremont County. The incident occurred on Ocean Lake... The sheriff's office says a 71-year-old man was ice fishing when the piece of ice he was standing on broke away from the bank. It was carried a quarter of a mile from shore with the wind... The fisherman was stranded there for a couple of hours before he was picked up by airboat."

First of all, I was a bit perturbed when the 71 year old was called elderly since I just turned 69. But the incident brought to mind an incident I had on that very same lake in the spring of 1970 while I was the high school principal of the Wind River District. I'd gone to visit a staff member who happened to have had a small resort on the lake. He had just purchased three or four new outboard motors to rent out and wanted to try one of them out on a pontoon. For some reason my school's secretary and her daughter were present, too, so this fellow asked if we all wanted to ride along. Sure, so we walked on, he untied the tether, and we slowly drifted away from the dock. He proceeded to pull and pull on the starter rope, but it wouldn't even fire. By now we had drifted some distance from shore and a treacherous wind took control of the situation. The ladies panicked, the engine wouldn't start, and I knew it was time to do something about it. I found a small tool on board and tapped on the carburetor thinking the valve was stuck which proved to be the case. The engine promptly started and we were slowly able to make our way back to shore in the face of that wind. Afterward I learned Ocean Lake was treacherous that way because wind can come up unexpectedly!

Veins and Arteries

March 23, 2011

The face of the rivers around here changes rapidly. This morning I drove across the Missouri and it looked clear of ice, but the Heart River rose during the night and on it float thousands of chunks of ice. Winter hangs on, though; ice storms and blizzards have been predicted for tonight and on into the next couple of days.

Outdoor Restaurant

Just jokin' around. It'll still be a few days.

First Signs

Mary said with a bit of excitement in her voice that the daffodils on the south side of the house are up. That was good enough news that I took the camera out after supper to snap this. Snow has been disappearing the last few days, and I occasionally hear geese overhead. The Missouri still wears its coat of ice, but warm water from the gas refinery plant seems to spread more over a larger area on the surface.

Model A Ford

I love these old Model A’s! When growing up I recall seeing a few of them still in use. An old-timer in Sheldon, Pete Schroeder, drove this pick-up version around town, smoothly purring back and forth on the streets. A classmate puttered for years on one that he had acquired someplace, but I don’t remember if he ever got it going. My favorite memories of Model A’s though were associated with a local character, Bill Dunell, who always found one to drive; when one quit running he rounded up another. Bill seemed to support himself with a variety of odd-jobs: water-witching, animal vet jobs, trapping fish in the Sheyenne River, and shining deer in the sand hills. This story quickly leaves the Model A scene when it recalls his bringing a poached deer into bed with him one night because the local game warden breathed hot on his tracks and was shining a flashlight in
Bill’s window.

How can one forget how the famous poet from Sheldon, Tom McGrath, immortalized Bill in verse:

Bill Dee: last of the old bronc-stompers
From the gone days of Montana mustangs we used on the farms
For light work and for riding and the pure hell of having
Outlaws around…

The same Bill Dee of the famous removable
Eye: which he’d slip in your shot glass sometimes - O blinding and sobering
Sight!”

Well, anyway, that’s what comes to mind when I start reminiscing about Model A Ford’s.

Atomic Energy

So much going on in the world of atomic energy. Japan might not exist after their problems are all said and done; it’s the second time they’ve been introduced to problems with that form of energy. Even with their skill and caution in building physical nuclear plants they could not could have predicted or prepared for the awful energy that visited and damaged them in the tsunami. Yesterday I attended another session of “Conversations at BSC” where the topic was “North Dakota - the world’s third largest nuclear power.” President of the college Dr. Skogen, a participant yesterday, spent his military career with intercontinental ballistic missiles. The picture he drew of nuclear weapons makes one shudder. North Dakota has deactivated half of their missiles, those in the Grand Forks Air Force base region, but hose in the Minot region still can be fired off, all 150 of them. They’ve been deactivated in the Grand Forks region except for one, that is. One site has been preserved at Cooperstown as a museum of the cold war and is maintained by North Dakota Heritage Society. I believe a short day trip in this period of high gas prices will be appropriate this summer, so we’ll drive over there one day. It is said to be very well maintained and informative.

Last week’s session of “World War II Memories” at the Learning Institute featured a guest speaker who handles North Dakota’s Homeland Security office. He outlined how easy and prevalent the threat of terrorism is up to and including atomic weapons.

We finished the final class of the Institute’s poetry offering. I hate to see it finished, but now I’m fired up about writing again. The local management of the Institute is very open to suggestions for new offerings, so with my mind hungry for new material I suggested introduction to photography and introduction to good books. She seemed interested in those topics so maybe next session …

Dogtooth Hills

I have always been fascinated how place names come about. Mary's home town of Raleigh, ND rests below a line of hills called the Dogtooth Hills. Here is a picture taken in 1936. When driving by on the highway it is easy to see how someone with just a little imagination could have imagined a jawbone with canine teeth jutting out of it. I can think of several other names that have caught my attention over the years: Killdeer, Cutbank, Cache le Poudre, Wind River, etc. I should have opened an atlas and scanned it because there are many of this type.

Teddy's Statue

This statue is on Mandan's main street. I took the picture this afternoon since I was reminded of TR recently. Dickinson State University somehow got the rights to be the portal sight for Roosevelt's digitized papers. Now anyone with an interest in his historical perspective will need to go through the Dickinson website to get at them. That institution is proud of that distinction. Harvard University and the Library of Congress hold hundreds of thousands of his documents, but they wouldn't be readily available to the casual looker. Now, instead, you can learn anything about him you want to know on your computer.

Gas Prices

It is no secret that gas prices started rising again. Will the $4.00 mark be reached? It did not so long ago. For a session at the Institute yesterday I dusted off a poem I'd written at that time to share with my group.

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 will start rollin' in.
Now here's where the dream will end.
Wife'll say, "We've got cash, mow again!"

Used Book Sale Tomorrow

An event scheduled tomorrow at the Bismarck Public Library always gets my attention; however, by looking at the picture I need more books ...? Yes, I'm always on the prowl for a cheap used book. Many of the books in this bookcase have been purchased at used book sales. The Bismarck library runs this huge sale, selling by the pound, twice a year, and the Mandan library runs a big one annually. And I'm always checking out thrift stores, the best one for books being the Seeds of Hope store in downtown Bismarck.

A casual look at the picture might bring the response that that's not so many books. True, but it is only one of my bookcases. A similar one sets beside my easy chair in the living room, another is hidden in a closet in my study, and another in the spare bedroom next door. Mary might want to add hers, too, a big one in her office area. Oh yes, then there's the family history library in a closet upstairs.

Maybe my penchant for buying books can be related to this story of gluttony: "I went on a diet, swore off drinking and heavy eating, and in fourteen days I lost two weeks."

75 Years Ago

Pheasants that have survived the winter thus far have begun to gather at the sides of the roads looking for whatever they cannot find in the fields. This is another scene I carved about twenty years ago, but why the title "75 Years Ago." This past Saturday we drove east to take something to my mother in Lisbon, eat dinner with our son and his wife in Fargo, and still leave enough to attend an 80th birthday celebration for an aunt in Fargo. In Lisbon I picked up Ma's Fargo Forum and read an article, the point of which I had heard Dad speak of often. It was the record setting string of cold temperatures that occurred in 1936: 37 straight days in Fargo when the temperature never rose above the zero mark. Langdon logged 42 days of it. I haven't seen the figures for this part of the state, but it probably does not differ a lot. I wonder how the wildlife fared in that severity. I'm not sure if it was 1936, but the opposite extreme occurred, a string of days when the thermometer registered over a hundred degrees.

Time Passes So Quickly

I looked on one of our shelves and spotted this hand carved scene of wild turkeys I had done over twenty years ago; now I don't even pick up a knife to carve others. Where did those twenty years go. Yesterday I attended another session at the Osher Institute about World War II Memories; Dr. Wilson brought his wife along to tell of her memories. She was a war bride, an English citizen whom he met while stationed there during the war. She, too, was a veteran who wore the uniform of her country's women's air force. I asked her if she returns to England for visits, and she replied that she does not often go back because she has outlived her close relatives. Her story was interesting, but sadly so much time has passed and she too grows old.

Dreaming of Spring

Mary snapped this picture last summer. It gets me to thinking, maybe those people who go to Arizona for the winter know something.

The Thinker

t
This picture of The Thinker, sculpted by Auguste Rodin, has sat on my shelf for quite a few years. I finally got around to researching the significance of it and learned it depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle. However, there are other meanings associated with this sculpture. I once had a visitor, a bit pious and stodgy, who reacted as if this
were pornography. The most common reaction seems to be that he is taking care of his daily bathroom duties, or someone who can't get the superglue unstuck from his fist and face, or someone who can't decide which clothes to wear, or ... Silly, silly...

My Birthplace

Mary showed me a picture the other day which I do not ever remember seeing. It is of my birthplace, the spot from which I have my earliest memories: placing an egg in my pants pocket and having it break, a problem I tried to solve by taking Ma's broom and whisking the mess away; taking an afternoon nap and having the ceiling plaster fall on me; watching a crew thresh behind the barn and having Charlie Ufer pick me up and pretend to throw me into the feeder; being told to stay in the house while Ma went with Dad in a blizzard to load hay, and I tried to open the shanty door to follow but couldn't get it to budge. I've been told of other things: being harassed by a rooster in the yard and then picking up a stick and killing him; wandering away from home and being found two miles away in a slough only because my uncle Alfred saw the tail of my companion dog waving amongst the cattails; plus some others.

My folks wanted a new place of their own and built up a farmstead another one half mile south of this location. I was about three or four years old when we moved. Dad always referred to the old farm as the old Adams' place, and after we vacated the Kenneth Bartholomay family lived there and they were followed by the John Warner family. The buildings have all disappeared now just as the new place has to where we moved. On the three mile stretch of township road there were five farmsteads, but now only one remains.

Poetry at the Institute

In addition to WW II Memories at the Learning Institute I am enrolled in a poetry class where a recent assignment was to write a piece in the form captioned in the above picture. The model bull is of our local sports figure Little Yellow Jacket who took top honors in the rodeo world for three years.

World War II Memories

One of the sessions at the Learning Institute I've enrolled in this term is named A Veteran's Remembrances: World War II. Dr. Herbert Wilson, a retired M. D. who spent most of his career at Fort Berthold in ND, flew 31 missions in World War II in B-24's as a gunner-bombardier and serves as our instructor. I look forward to the five remaining sessions when he will bring a guest speaker. Next week he's scheduled his wife who he married in England during the war who has stories of her own.

The picture taken about a year ago is of George McGovern with me asking him a question about his piloting these B-24's for 35 missions during that war. My question: what was it like flying so many times over dangerous territory. "I was scared all the time," was his response to me.

Back Saver

Some winters this old pal doesn't have to work very hard, but others he gets called on quite often to do what he does best: throw snow. It's hard to imagine this invention didn't get developed long before it did. Scoop shovels used to be the main tool we grabbed to make narrow paths to the barn or get a car unstuck in the driveway. Some things I can do without; old John Deere isn't going to be one of them.

It's a Small World

Here I am just foolin' around. I can't wait for the snow to melt so I can take this new camera out and put it to work in various places.

Ike

Brandon and Lindsey's pet dog Ike has grown to be an armful. He's a purebred Australian Shepherd, is extremely physical, and loves people. He goes from one person to another looking for pets and scratches, but he would just as soon jump in your lap. He loves it when his master picks him up, but being he is now 65 pounds I was encouraged to hurry up and snap this picture.

We drove to Lisbon on Sunday to see my mother and celebrate her birthday which will be on the 17th when she will be 91. We usually eat at the Parkside Lutheran Home when we visit her, and Sunday we ate some great steaks. There is lots of snow in Ransom County and in the whole Sheyenne River drainage system. I'm hoping some gentle thawing takes place so that it doesn't all run off at once. A couple days of thawing really shrunk the snow here in Mandan, but with the drainage river being the Missouri I'm not too worried about flooding.

February Thaw

The temperatures finally rose around here and we have had thawing. I drove south of town today because of some battery problems with Mary's car and wanted to charge it up again. The camera sat beside me and when I got to the Veteran's Cemetery I noticed things looked differently than when I saw them last. The Christmas wreaths have been removed and the banks of snow have shrunk away from the grave markers. As for the car it took a call to AAA for a boost, and he wriggled on the cable and turned it quite freely. After giving the posts a baking soda cleaning and a good scratching with a steel brush, I had neglected to tighten the positive cable enough. Oh, well, we keep renewing the insurance and this was probably only the second time it's been used.

Mary Poses

Doin' Fun Things Now

Even as the days grow longer, winter stays very much with us. We retired folks need to find things to entertain us, and I've got plenty of them. Fooling around with photos and attaching poems or other information to them occupies a good deal of time. I purchased a digital SLR camera the other day and this photo of Little Heart Butte was one of my first subjects. My five line poem superimposed on it has previously been published in the Tanka Society of America journal "Ribbons."







This next one challenged me a bit as I used our simple point-and-shoot Nikon to take it. I like the way it turned out, though. Below the picture I composed some lines to describe the scene.



"On a recent trip to the Gettysburg Battlefield our tour bus stopped at a spot known as Little Round Top, a site where some brutal fighting took place. There, beneath the old oak trees acorns lay strewn about. How old those trees were I had no way of knowing, but I imagined the soil where they had taken root to have been soaked with the blood of those many fallen soldiers. I saved these three and keep them in a place of honor."

So it is, here in Mandan. I have another birthday next week to add on my growing total - the 69th. How that came on so fast scares me, so for the time remaining I'd better get moving and accomplish some more tasks. Emily Dickinson penned a poem that pretty well describes the future :

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling on the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

One final aside, someone figured out that you can sing this poem to the tune "The Yellow Rose of Texas."

Winter

Another edited picture

I found an editor program

Here is the veteran's cemetery picture which I posted a few days ago. Here is the same one with artistic touches. This should be fun!

Foraging Deer

It has been a rough couple of weeks here at the Bueling homestead what with illness. Mary suffered through hers and seems to be better, but I’m still battling it. That has been the main story around here. The joke seemed to be on me: about a week ago I thought I was over it so that was when I waded through the deep snow to snap the picture of the water pump in our backyard. Since it was so deep I became exhausted and began breathing gulps of cold air and then a hard relapse. Mary adds to a compost pile with scraps of veggies even now in the winter, and deer have found it, thus this picture. Here is where I wish for a better camera with telephoto capabilities. Living where we do provides a multitude of photo ops.

I’ve enjoyed watching a number of videos from this year’s Elko, NV Cowboy Poetry Gathering that are posted on the internet. Some of the performances are excellent. Interested? Go to westernfolklife.org and click on Gathering Cybercast.

Regarding deer I drove past a small herd the other day and saw them standing belly-deep in snow to reach for some dried leaves on a branch. It made me appreciate my refrigerator and pantry.

Snowfall keeps piling up. The Bismarck Tribune reported over 52 inches of it, about 23 inches above normal. We’ve still got February and March. Uff da!

A Time to Grow

January
something’s growing
in the sunshine
amaryllis, geraniums
grandkids


These last few days of January brought sun and thawing here in our neck of the woods. Mary arranged some plants in this corner of the dining area near our large patio door to catch the sun and they are doing well. The large bloomer is her Christmas-present amaryllis and on the floor she has started a flat of geranium seeds that poked out of the ground a few days ago to start their climb towards the sunlight.

We’ve been fortunate to see all the grandkids recently. Yes, they are growing, too. Eventually they will blossom into full adulthood and thrive in the sunshine they seek.

The Water Pump

filling my pot
at the kitchen sink
I remember Grandma
carrying a pail
and pumping the handle




The pump in the picture is ornamental, my backyard decoration. Often times when I stand at our kitchen sink and fill my coffee pot I look out the window at this scene and am reminded of the real water pump at my grandparents' farm. They had no running water and had to carry it whenever it was needed in the house . For some reason that water always tasted so good; maybe it was because the boy I was got to drink from the long-handled dipper that hung on the bucket.

For Everything a Season

North Dakota Veterans Cemetery



drifting snow
covers wreaths
and headstones...
for everything
there is a season

A few miles south of Mandan the remains of hundreds of military veterans rest, some with their spouses. On a dreary January day I drove there with my camera to find this scene. At the start of the Christmas season volunteers placed wreaths against the stones; the drifted snow partially covering the two objects reminded me of the poetry of Ecclesiastes 3: for everything there is a season. Here I saw two seasons represented: a religious holiday and a person's life.

. . . . . . . . .
I've been wanting to make my blogspot more interesting. Since I'd like to improve my poetry writing I constantly study the forms that interest me most. Lately I have discovered and read as many of the above style as I can find on the internet. The verse form is the five-line tanka and by combining the poem with narrative prose and a picture you come up with photo-tanka-prose, not that it matters one bit to anyone except the few of us who write that style. Of course, all it does is to keep those few of us happy knowing that we are practicing something that has a name. I hope the picture is bright enough to be effective. I fear I may have to invest in a better camera, but what the heck, Mary always tells me I can't take it with me even though I then respond I just want to make sure it lasts. At any rate, I will be utilizing this format for awhile which just means until I find something I'd rather do. In a week or two I will go back to my once-a-week schedule, but I may experiment a bit more and post a few extra.

Harry, the Wizard

Grandson Harry showing us how to upload pictures to this blogsite.

Lily telling Grandpa ...

Here is my granddaughter Lily explaining things of importance to her in her almost two-year-old world.

Rejected

It snows everyday! I blew snow yesterday morning after the weekend’s buildup, then it snowed again. Every morning we see a large herd of deer in the alfalfa field below our house. I know they find good grazing in the dried alfalfa stems beneath the snow. They started appearing as soon as hunting season ended. The other day as we drove along I-94 we saw two deer step out of a cornfield with no cares in the world.

Last week I printed a few of the poems that have been carried in the Ribbons magazine that is published by the Tanka Society of America. Here are a couple more with some background as to how they came about.

the morning sun
rises on veiled buttes
spreading its light
with the wings
of soaring hawks

This appeared in “The Tanka Café” section of the magazine and since its editor called for poems to be written with the theme “Things that Fly” for this edition I came up with this one. I couldn’t resist referring to the landscape that unrolls from here on to the west. Buttes and hawks, so prevalent, are easy to write of in combination with each other.
…

due south
Little Heart Butte
pokes from the surface
a lump on the skin
prominent yet benign

Some time ago a local columnist in our newspaper referred to the Little Heart Butte as a pimple on the ground. This butte rises prominently just a few miles south of my home, and I look at it often. Since it is more conical in shape than the commonly thought of flat-topped butte, it could be a metaphor for skin eruption. I took that idea and developed it into the foregoing tanka that appeared in the open-entry part of the magazine.

The next theme for “The Tanka Café” is Art and Artlessness. Lucky for me, the editor states “Generally, restrictions will be few and almost any treatment will be acceptable. The overall challenge will be to submit one’s very best effort.” I guess my work is cut out for me, so I’d better get started. Of course, high-flying balloons always come back to the ground. I just received a notice from another magazine to which I had submitted a group of poems. They rejected every one of them.

Mayhem & Poems

Much will be written and spoken regarding the recent tragedy of murder and mayhem in Arizona. The words that I bring to the subject matter little. A discussion has begun about toning down the political rhetoric which I am certain does influence mentally unbalanced, gun-happy people. Of course a defensive position has already been taken by the perpetrators of hate by saying that their words were only meant metaphorically. It should be well understood, though, most of the nuts with guns don’t know what a metaphor is. Can there be a more civil discourse? I doubt it. One of the sensible media people, Jon Meacham, said there is a class of people who depend on conflict for their living, not conflict resolution.
…

A few months ago I joined the Tanka Society of America, a group which specializes in the art of writing this ancient five-line form of Japanese poetry. TSA is a group of about 200 dues paying members, and when I recently looked over the membership list I was surprised to discover that I am its only member in North Dakota. The organization publishes “Ribbons,“ a very respectable journal that features member-written poems. I received the latest edition a couple of days ago and found within its pages three poems I had submitted.

midnight
the Soo Line train waits
at a crossing
engine-idle and frog-croak
blend in harmony

The section of the journal where this one appeared called for poems to exhibit a sense of loneliness. I remember laying in the upstairs bedroom of the farm west of Sheldon and hearing this on a summer night through the open window. The railroads, Soo Line and NP, crossed a couple miles west of the farmstead and, as I understood it, had to stop to verify that another train on the other track wasn’t bearing down on them. On a still night the sound of the diesel engine’s idling came across the fields, and I imagined it blending with the frogs in the creek just west of the buildings.
…


hard rains
in Vermont
flood fields -
pumpkins floating
in the Winooski River

Last fall we took a long bus tour through the northeast. While we never experienced any heavy rains we drove through an area in Vermont where crop damage had occurred. As we cruised along I looked out the bus window and saw this unusual sight - a crop of pumpkins floating against a dam in the river.
…

this daylily
blooms once and dies
but then
another bud opens. . .
my sons, their sons

Mary grows a wide variety of flower species in her gardens, one of them being daylilies. It is such a popular flower in this city that a local group held a national daylily convention here last summer. After learning that this flower has the particular characteristic of each bud’s lasting just one day, I began thinking that this natural metaphor begged to be written.

Just Thinking

The streets in Mandan and Bismarck are full of snow, blizzards keep us off the highways, and evenings find us drawing the drapes on our windows to keep some of the cold air out. Times like this foster a time of introspection and most likely permits me to do my deepest thinking. I continually write poems in my head and feel pressure to publish my third book. I often read good literature and well-written history so as to understand things better. And this blog keeps my mind agile as I try to write something worthwhile each week. But, alas, my work habits are poor as I fritter away too much time. Somebody said that a day is a span of time no one is wealthy enough to waste. My next birthday is my 69th; I know it is pointless to wish for subtracting any of those years.

I spend a fair share of time thinking and worrying about national and international affairs. Maybe that’s a waste of time since my little voice in this wilderness can’t be heard. The first book I downloaded on my new Barnes and Noble Nook is Barbara Tuchmann’s The Guns of August which describes in detail the month-long build-up to the beginning of World War I. One doesn’t have to be very perceptive in reading this text to see that only a few men caused the slaughtering of hundreds of thousands in the massive, ensuing battles - pieces on the game masters’ chess board. Wars have always been fought because of the desire to expand a borderline or because of a perceived threat or to settle some past infringement of honor, and in every case it is just a few puppet-masters pulling the strings to prepare the populations and ready the war machines.

I don’t believe this phenomenon takes place only in military wars, though. Pied Pipers abound to play loud tempting tunes of “follow me” on their flutes. A very interesting scenario just played out in our state’s U. S. senate election. John Hoeven’s campaign emphasized North Dakota’s one billion dollar treasury surplus which he, of course, hinted at being responsible for. He crowed of how he was going to take that message of success to the workings of the federal government and show them how it how to get it done. He was elected by a large margin, but now his fellow political party members in the state legislature are saying “yes, but…” much of that money can’t be spent because it has been earmarked for various funds and is therefore not available for the legislators to allocate. To go one step further, if the oil industry in this state hadn’t developed oil production to generate money for the state coffers there would have been no surplus to discuss and North Dakota would have been as destitute as many another state. Although I think he would have been elected to the senate anyway due to a weak opposition candidate, he sure made a lot of noise tooting that flute.

Our country just suffered through two years of criticism directed to individuals and institutions where support groups kept writing flute music. It’s been a cacophony of sound with “birthers,” “tea parties,” “don’t ask, don’t tell,” “repeal Obamacare” tunes playing and gathering followers. How about the two preachers: one rallies his flock to attend the funerals of veterans to blame their deaths on the evils of homosexuality and the other for wanting to hold a Koran burning. For awhile the message was we’ve become socialistic since we bailed out the car companies, but has that not developed into a success story? Well, the stock market looks pretty good right now and we invested in some municipal bonds that pay out pretty good so I suspect things will work out.

I'm No Luddite

Here it is Wednesday again, time for another blog of Miscellaneous Musings. I’ve never tired of writing it; I can always find a new topic to discuss even though it is only three or four paragraphs long. There’s something about stringing a few thoughts together and putting them into a reasonable form that I find appealing. The modern world tries to require us to write with the latest electronic gadgets, namely word processors and I admit to using one. Some of my favorite authors refuse to use them, however. Jim Harrison who wrote The Legends of the Fall plus a whole raft of good poetry writes with cheap ball point pens; Pat Conroy, author of The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides writes in longhand on a legal pad; and my favorite tale of an author refusing to write electronically is Cormac McCarthy who has written all his books on a portable manual typewriter, the same machine that brought nearly a quarter of a million dollars when sold a few months ago at auction for an organization’s fund-raiser. He was able to replace it with one that a friend purchased used on Ebay for $20. Shelby Foote who wrote a great Civil War trilogy that Ken Burns used to base his PBS Civil War series on insisted on using dip pens. Nibs wore out and were scarce so when he located a large supply of them he bought the whole works.

A great example of the low-tech method of writing was Thomas Jefferson’s use of a goose quill to write the Declaration of Independence. I purchased a replica of that document while on our east coast tour this past fall because of the poetry of its words. As much as I admire people who use old methods of writing, I admit to being a slave to the computer. A requested Christmas gift I received from Mrs. Claus this year was a Barnes and Noble Color Nookbook on which I can download hundreds of books and read them on its screen. It is a form of computer containing a powerful storage system. The first book I downloaded? Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I have been wanting to re-read it for some time. It’s a daunting task because it is so long, but there is a reason why it has been called the greatest novel ever written, and I want to experience it again.

In the early 19th century a group in England called Luddites reacted violently to labor saving devices being set in place at factories as part of the industrial revolution. They reacted because many of them lost their jobs because of the efficiencies that came about.
That term Luddite is used occasionally today to describe someone who is against change. I’ve been called many things in my life, but because I’m writing this on my laptop I can’t be called a Luddite with my electronic writing habits.

Christmas, 2010

Rush, rush, rush! Still some time left to fill those Christmas stockings and that little space left under the tree. It won’t make you any happier, but the merchants will sure like it, not that they will remember you the next time you come in or anything. This year I’ve found myself being less excited for the coming of Christmas than at anytime in my life. Maybe it’s due to the constant barrage of advertising we’ve had since before Thanksgiving, whether coming from newsprint, radio, television, or the internet.

I still remember the time when Christmas wasn’t mentioned before Thanksgiving since Thanksgiving meant something besides gorging and watching a football game. I also remember when Christmas celebrated the birthday of someone special, and the retail aspect of the holiday was secondary. I’m certain that a very large percentage of gift shoppers give little or no thought to the religious aspect. They’ve been persuaded and even programmed to spend gobs of money to buy gifts with money some of them don’t have.

Just to remind myself, I searched out the meaning of some of the symbols of Christmas:

* The Star: A heavenly sign of prophecy fulfilled long, long ago- The shining hope of mankind.

* The Color Red: The first color of Christmas, symbolizing that Savior's sacrifice for all.

* The Fir Tree: Evergreen- the second color of Christmas shows everlasting light and life. The needles point up to heaven.

* The Bell: Rings out to guide lost sheep back to the fold, signifying that all are precious in His eyes.

* The Candle: A mirror of starlight, reflecting our thanks for the star of Bethlehem.


* The Candy Cane: Represents the shape of the shepherd's crook, used to bring lost lambs back to the fold.

* The Wreath: A symbol of the never ending eternal value of love… having no end.

Well, I had better get out of my funk and cheer up and wish Merry Christmas to the many people who I count as friends in this world. I’ll even go so far as to wish everyone else the same. I can’t express it any better than by using the old Christmas saying of “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men.”

Winter Has Arrived

Winter hit us pretty hard this year; we’ve had lots of snowfall, and it’s not uncommon to hear the snowblowers roaring off in the distance. I’ve cranked up my old John Deere eight-horse three times already and shoveled a few times in between. When we drove over the Missouri River this morning I noticed it to be pretty crowded with floes of ice that we know will soon connect to form a solid sheet.

I use Bing.com as my computer search engine. Each day it features a different and interesting picture. Yesterday a Great White Owl in flight filled the screen and the sight of it took me back to when I was a young boy. One particularly hard winter I remember Dad coming into the house telling me to look out the south window of our farmhouse. There, gliding back and forth over our south pasture, he pointed out a snowy owl. It looked ghostlike, it’s mostly white body blending in with the snow cover. I’m not much of a Harry Potter fan, but I think the owl in that storyline is a Great White. Apparently they like mice in their diets, and I suppose when the winter comes on too harshly up north some will fly on down here to find something to eat.

Last week I considered metaphors in literature and came upon a good one. This may have been common knowledge to some, but it seemed new to me. The well-known Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” carries a hidden meaning. Some centuries past people of the Catholic religion could not openly worship in England. The song stands as a catechism for teaching the kids. Here, according to some interpretation, is what each element of the song stands for:

- Partridge in a pear tree = Jesus
- Two turtle doves = Old and New Testaments
- Three French hens = faith, hope, and love
- Four calling birds = the four gospels
- Five golden rings = the first five books of the Old Testament
- Six geese a-laying = the six days of creation
- Seven swans a-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit
- Eight maids a-milking = the eight beatitudes
- Nine ladies dancing = the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit
- Ten lords a-leaping = the ten commandments
- Eleven pipers piping = the eleven faithful disciples
- Twelve drummers drumming = the twelve points of belief in the
Apostles Creed
…
On Sunday we attended another of the lecture series sponsored by Bismarck State College, it’s topic being John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. The president of the college and a locally based scholar sit on stage in an informal living room setting and hold their “discussion” of the chosen topic. Last month they featured Otto von Bismarck and the implications inherent with naming the city of Bismarck. Next month Custer is the topic; I’ll be there. The scholar’s name is Clay Jenkinson and this area would be much poorer in a cultural sense if he were not here. When something interesting is happening, there’s a good chance he’s involved with it. I usually tune into his Jefferson Hour each Sunday morning on public radio. When we were touring this fall I had to miss a symposium in Bismarck that featured the impact of Eric Sevareid on news reporting. He is also a major force in conducting the annual Teddy Roosevelt symposium at Dickinson State. Jenkinson attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. In May he and the Satrom Travel Agency are going on tour to London to visit various literary sites in and around London, and I think I am going to go along. We’ll get there taking a five-day cruise on the Queen Mary II and spend six days in the city. Stay tuned.

Saying something is something else

We all like to read well-written prose that has been enlivened with a liberal sprinkling of metaphors and similes. A couple of years ago I bought the book i never metaphor i didn’t like and was surprised to find its author Dr. Mardy Grothe attended UND when I did. I suppose our paths crossed on campus numerous times but I don’t remember him. At any rate he wrote this worthwhile compilation of figurative language including metaphors, similes, and analogies.

I related to this one by H. L. Mencken: “I write in order to attain that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.” Curt Simmons was credited with this one from the sports world: “Trying to sneak a fastball past Henry Aaron was like trying to sneak the sun past a rooster.” Dwight Eisenhower said this: “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.”

Many figures of speech deal with old age and death. This one, Thomas Hobbes’ last words, is easy to understand: “I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark.” The early president John Quincy Adams spoke from his familiar horse and buggy days: “Old minds are like horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.” But these old proverbs from various sources are my favorites: “There’s many a good tune played on an old fiddle,” “The older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune,” “The oldest trees often bear the sweetest fruit,” “The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”

Good novels usually equal the use of good metaphors, in fact the whole story can act as one. My recent re-reading of To Kill A Mockingbird yielded this: the mockingbird represents innocence while guns represent false strength. The Bible contains many, such as - “Ye are the salt of the earth,” “The Lord God is a sun and shield,” “The harvest is the end of the age,” “I am the light of the world.”

The point of it all is that good metaphors spark the imagination. I know I am a rank beginner in their use, but I try to improve. I suppose I can talk in terms of flights of geese pulling a blanket of winter clouds over us as they fly south. Maybe not!
…
One hundred years ago this article made the Sheldon news: The ice harvest has begun and every day several loads of congealed moisture are hauled into Sheldon. Most of the ice is being taken from Beaver Dam, on the Maple River, in the vicinity of the S. P. Benson farm. It is clear and of good quality and is about 15” thick. In all probability every ice house in Sheldon will be filled before the first of the year.