Buggies and Blues, # 2

Maybe a bumper sticker or two would fit into a further Buggies and Blues blog entry: If I could have dinner with anyone, alive or dead, I would choose alive.

There were so many nice cars at Sunday's event on main street Mandan that I need to show a few more. This one happens to be owned by the man who lives across the street from my father-in-law so I see it occasionally in the driveway getting polished up. If I remember correctly this model gave lots of trouble because of so many electric motors and joints that went into making this top open or close. I don't think any other car maker tried to make one, either.

Studebakers, there were a few running around in the old days. They always had nice styling, but must have been ahead of their time because it didn't stick around. It is one car I would like to see again.
This Cadillac exudes class. Lots of fun got made of finny styling, but they sure seem desirable as a collectible classic. This one really looked pretty!
Some farm tractors sat on display, too. This one The General intrigued me so I went to the internet to find some information. I believe this model was the one listed as having a 17 horsepower Hercules engine, manufactured by the Cleveland Tractor Company and was distributed by Massey-Harris from 1939-41. World War II obviously interfered with further production and they probably converted over to making tanks or jeeps or something.

Bumper Sticker: Without men civilization would last until the oil needed changing.

Buggies and Blues

Mandan hosts an annual event called "Buggies and Blues" and it draws lots of cars and people. Main street is closed off so classic cars could park in double file for about nine blocks. Plus two or three of the side streets joining main street contain classic cars, too. The estimated number of cars is usually around 500, and just to make it interesting quite a few classic farm tractors sit on display, too. Under the bandshell live bands play and food and drink vendors sell their products. Other vendors set up on the sidewalk selling things such as model cars, services for body work and painting, collectible license plates, etc.

The Fairlane is owned by an old Sheldonite, Larry Strand, who takes a lot of pride in his vehicle. I think he comes every year. Because of the flooding the usual date of the car show had to moved to this July date. I kidded Larry about going through withdrawals when he and his fellow owners couldn't show in June. "Yeah," he said laughing, "I got the shakes!"

I remembered George Bunn when I saw this car. His parents owned one that looked like it - maybe a four-door, though - and I got to ride with him once in awhile on Saturday night. It was one nice riding car! Car lovers are a pretty nostalgic bunch.

How I loved these Mustangs when they came out the summer I graduated from college. I made up my mind to get one and pay monthly payments. Wouldn't you know it, Ford went on strike then and didn't produce them for awhile. So I bought an plain Jane of a '62 Ford. I had to wait until I got married to get a Mustang. Mary brought hers to our union, a '65 fastback model.

The sun beat down pretty hard and shade felt pretty good, but the heat didn't stop the crowd from showing up. I'll just bet there will be another Buggies and Blues next year.

Old Truths

I finally got around to reading the classic western tale of The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark. It tells of a rush to judgment with the report of a rancher's murder and the rustling of his cattle. As the story progresses rumors fly and the strong hot-heads intimidate others to follow along with their quest to find the wrong-doers and punish them. The sheriff is out of town and the "mob" is all right with that; they will take care of the problem without the backing of the law. After riding several hours in the dark the group finds three men with a small herd of cattle. The leader of the three tries to convince the posse that the seller of these cattle promised to send the bill of sale, but without it no amount of arguing convinces them of their innocence, and they are hung from a tree. Soon the sheriff and the "murdered" rancher show up to tell them of the mistake the mob has made, and the story ends with feelings of guilt and denial of participation in the affair.

I wonder how different is the reaction of the mob in the book from the groups in today's political scene. With so many "experts" spouting wisdom without letting facts get in the way of a good prejudice the mob follows along. It takes work and concentration to ferret out the facts of any case and most people are not willing to put it out.

Minneapolis Weekend

The grandkids keep growing, changing each time we see them. We went to Minneapolis this weekend to spend some time with them while their mother attended a workshop in Ann Arbor, MI. My computer had all kinds of connectivity problems so I never got this posted earlier. We are home now in Mandan, tired, and looking out the windows at hail damage on Mary's flowers.

Lucas is 5 years old and involved with various activities and exhibits much intellectual curiosity. He loves t-ball, swimming, and gymnastics. :)

Lily is 2 1/2 now and talks better than anyone I know with a pacifier in her mouth. She exhibits a great ability to stand up for herself against her older brother. :)

We spent a short time at the arboretum which by the way is a fantastic place. Beautiful gardens
abound and several weddings were being held to take advantage of the scenery. Unfortunately it was hot and humid so it was a bit uncomfortable. The University of Minnesota maintains the facility and in addition to opening the grounds to the public (for a fee) conduct plant experimentation there.

The house constructed from twigs and vines greets visitors first thing. Quite large, an adult does not need to duck down when walking through the entrance.

The World Changes

I started driving a car of this year, make, and model when I was 14 years old. It was the family automobile, and I learned to drive it mostly with my mother sitting beside me since I had begged her to let me do it. Driving a car never proved much of a challenge to farm boys like me who had been sitting on a tractor already for several years. The only real difference - the car went faster.
I still remember taking my driver's test in the county seat of Lisbon. With my permit, I had gotten a small booklet to study which I did, diligently. The day of the test a big, uniformed highway patrolman got in the car with me and we were off. I think he gigged me on one little item, but then, isn't that the way it is with people in power? They need to find a little fault to justify their position.

Cars have changed a great deal since this one. I remember how it rattled on washboard roads, how poor a winter starter it was, and how it leaked dust. Dad liked it, though, because the lip of the trunk was cut low and he could easily lift cream cans in and out, and hauling the cream to town was a very important activity in those days. The cream check, our only steady cash flow, represented grocery money on Saturday night.

After many years, the merchants started promoting a new idea. They wanted more weekend time for themselves, something they didn't have with Saturday night openings. Thus Friday night openings came about, and that little action accompanied the death of the little farm towns, it seems to me. A bit of the nostalgia died then since a Saturday night bath always took us into Sunday leisure activities and then through the rest of the week to the next Saturday. Of course, taking baths in the galvanized washtub is another story.

Getting Reacquainted

Since joining the Western Writers of America, I have been looking at their reading lists to see what they define as good western genre writing. I have read many of them , but some of them I have not, and I am enjoying them now. Something I think is very interesting is that some of these stories are quite short, either in the novella form or the short story form. A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean and Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison are both written as novellas. A woman writer, Dorothy M. Johnson, wrote short stories with very familiar titles that earned lots of respect: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, and A Man Called Horse. Another famliar short novella is Brokeback Mountain.

An interesting point is that an excellent full-length movie has been made from each of these short works of literature. Put a solid story in the hands of a screen writer and he can work wonders. The Liberty Valence story is quite short, but there is so much packed into it, and in re-reading it I see where the screen writers got their inspiration.

Reading stories based on western themes, both old-time and contemporary, feels very comfortable for me. Too much of the "good stuff" as determined by critics comes from the east coast where all the intellectual snobs congregate.

Sad Day

One day this past week a Bismarck police officer was slain at the scene of a domestic disturbance call. He and his partner approached a car holding a man against whom his girlfriend had called the cops for holding a knife on her. When the police got close the man fired his gun and killed the officer. His partner in turn shot and wounded the killer. It was a sad affair with the policeman having four kids at ho me and had planned to retire in another year.

The funeral was held Thursday in the Bismarck Civic Center so as to accommodate the large crowd which one of the TV stations estimated at 1800. He was buried at the North Dakota Veteran's Cemetery and the mourners passed within one block of our home. I went down to the highway to watch the long cavalcade of cars. It was reported 120 agencies were represented, each having its car lights in full blinking mode. Many of the agencies drove several cars so I can only think there were 200-250 vehicles. I made a mental note of where they came from, and I'm sure most of the communities in the state sent a patrol car, several from Minnesota included Minneapolis, Duluth, Eagan, Moorhead, and a couple of unfamiliar Minnesota counties, several from South Dakota, college campus police, Indian reservations, unmarked cars with their hidden lights in their grilles blinking, etc. It was quite a show for a man who died much too young in an uncalled for situation.

Something from the Old Days

One hundred years ago in the old hometown harvest hands and hoboes started gathering to find work on farms around the community. Apparently a little heavier influx of men came looking to work that year because of a crop failure in South Dakota. They came mostly by train and not with a paid ticket either. They started coming in June as reported in The Progress and were hanging out in the stockyard just west of town. The editor referred to them as "the side door Pullman class," and each man cooked for himself on an open fire.

Now, in July, the editor wrote "Laborers are arriving on every train and those who want to work are finding no difficulty in obtaining employment. There are the usual number of hoboes among them who are not looking for anything that means labor. At Oakes Tuesday seventy-five harvest hands captured a freight train and forced the train officials to take them to Jamestown. The Oakes authorities attempted to arrest the men, but the hoboes were too many for them."

The village of Sheldon must have felt some threat because of this influx of strangers and hired a night watchman. "Jim has a policeman star something less than six inches in diameter but he doesn't wear it where it can be seen. He also carries a gun and is going to get a club. When fitted out he will make a typical Irish cop."

Songs and stories have been written about these workers, itinerant mostly because they had no choice, if they wanted to eat they had to go find it. Seasonal labor offered the only jobs for them. John Steinbeck, Jimmie Rodgers, and Woody Guthrie easily come to mind as being good spokesmen for the times. Jimmie Rodgers, not to be confused with the rock and roll era Jimmie Rodgers, wore several nicknames: The Singing Brakeman, and The Blue Yodeler, and the Father of Country Music. Some lines from his song Waiting for a Train: "All around the water tank/ Waiting for a train/ A thousand miles away from home/ Sleeping in the rain..." It was a hard life for these men.

I couldn't resist finding a picture of an old engine with the steam and smoke pouring out of her. It has been a long time since I've seen one, but I've never forgotten. When a freight train headed southeast of Enderlin it had to climb a grade and the clouds really poured from these engines then when they had to work extra hard.

Monday Morning Pieces

Our yard could be a palette for a painting if I wanted to paint it. Most every kind of color shows up in it, and I get to enjoy it without doing any of the work. That is Mary's hobby, I mow the grass, that's enough.
Speaking of mowing the grass here is a picture of my grandpa with his team hitched to a mower. That's the way it used to be done. When I look at it I think of sweat, flies, hot sun, etc. The physical labor is pretty much removed from the job now, but this year the problem is getting it cut and baled between rain showers. My office wall is covered with pictures like Grandpa's, luckily I was able to find the snapshots in family photo albums. Now with all of our computerized gimmicks we can save, enlarge, post to internet locations like this one, and more.

Friend Garden Cleaner, pictured in the last post, lies at the side of the highway between here and downtown. Roadkill, he got in someone's headlights, I presume, and that's that. However, there's always another to take his place.

A good editorial in yesterday's paper: the editor quoted a California journalist friend who said, "If we report the words but don't scrutinize them, are we public watchdogs or public lapdogs, mere conduits for folks with self-serving messages?" I immediately thought of the blather coming out of the mouths of our state politicians who kept saying how they will bring relief, rain fire and hell down on the Corps of Engineers for letting this happen, and otherwise show how good it is that we trusted them to represent us. (In regards to the flood) Yah, sure, you betcha'.

Garden Interest

It happened again yesterday, two strangers rang the doorbell asking questions about the flowers in Mary's garden. I'm dumb as a fencepost regarding such matters and to answer their question I had to call Mary at her dad's to find out. I walk behind a lawnmower, that's all.


This morning Mary stated, "I went to pick my spinach leaves and something ate them all off." I think the culprit is the fellow below. A little later, she said, "That devil ate off all the blossoms on my potato plants." And this is in the city limits, but then an animal doesn't pay much attention to lines drawn on a map.

I keep busy doing my thing reading and writing. I finally got moving on a project that's been waiting for me for a long time. In 1867 a wagon train returning empty from hauling freight to Fort Ransom was enroute to Fort Abercrombie when it got caught in a December blizzard for three days just southeast of Lisbon. The project format is written as a historical fiction short story. Here is an excerpt from the story:

We had to stop the bull train; the wind drove the snow in brisk gales and enclosed us in a small, white bowl from which we could not see beyond to the next wagon. Our usual task of parking wagons proved next to impossible since we could not see or hear the wagon boss, and by the time he rode back within earshot hollering and screaming, the train sat in muddled disarray. With the oxen needing attention we unhitched but kept them yoked together and tethered to the wagons so they would not drift across the prairie with the wind at their tails.

Hunkering down for the night we tried to light cook fires, but every time a man's shaking hands struck a match or flint to steel the wind snuffed it out. More than anything I wanted to wrap my cold fingers around a cup of hot coffee, but tonight there would be none. Chewing on hardtack I tried to think of other places. By morning we would roll again, so all any of us could do now was to try to get some sleep. But it was no use, the blankets did little to chase the chill, and we had to lay there all night listening to the wind rip and slap the wagon canvas.

Ghost Towns

On the 4th one of the stops we made was in the near-ghost town of Raleigh. On the day before the Sunday Bismarck Tribune carried a reference to a website established by two Fargo men: www.ghostsofnorthdakota.com. In it they go around to old town sites that have become abandoned or nearly so, take photographs, and write a short narrative. I found it interesting, but I have my own little online publication here and submit a few of the photos I took in Raleigh.


We had a little clipper mill like this at home, and I remember cleaning seed grain with it. To keep count of the number of bushels cleaned we'd pencil hash marks on the granary door, vertical for the first four bushels, then a diagonal through them for the fifth, and so on. A collection of interchangeable sieves were necessary to use it properly; grates on each one were of different sizes to accommodate whatever size of kernels we were cleaning

Thank goodness I never had to work around one of these. Constructed of wood, this one must really have been old. One of my early memories was of a hired man who picked me up and teased me about throwing me in, just like they were tossing shocks of grain in. I was scared, and I remember Dad telling him to stop.


Dad received quite a serious injury while a young lad riding a horse-drawn disc like this. He related as to how, near their farm at Nome, ND, the small implement hit a rock in the field and jumped up throwing him forward and thereby underneath the sharp disc wheels. He had to crawl and limp home for attention to his wounds.
From the heat and the smoke generated by this monster a person working around it must have been miserable . I have read and heard stories of the maintenance required to keep one of these operating. I remember tilling fields when my tractor pulled through a not uncommon old bed of clinkers that had been cleaned out of the boiler in a past time.

This collection of old machines has been collected by some group who are interested in keeping some of the old history alive.

On the Edge

Yesterday, instead of fighting the huge crowd in Mandan for the 4th, we decided to drive down to the area where Mary was born and raised. She always gets a bit agitated when I tell her it is on the edge of civilization, in the sticks. I guess it's just my nature to tease, but after looking at the pictures I took it makes me wonder -


Where else can you find a scene like this at the mailbox?

Where else can you find it any handier to hop on a stagecoach?

Where else can you gather a tub full of rattlesnakes in half an hour?

Where else can you find a sister-in-law who likes to talk through the leaves? Now this is all a tongue-in-cheek observation. I wasn't born and raised down there so I really can't say. To be more accurate it really is a scenic area, and with the moisture received this year looks very green. My sister-in-law really didn't stay in the leaves for long but graciously invited us inside their home. But still, there are some things ...

Today, July 1, the start of the last half year, 2011. How the time flies; what is the line Merle Haggard sings: I'll be rolling downhill, like a snowball headed for hell. This weekend Mandan celebrates the 4th big - Art in the Park, parade, rodeo, etc. Like all holidays, the meaning of the 4th of July has become blurred, mostly lost to some. At the time it earned its significance though the folks who brought it about stuck their necks out a long ways. The men of the Continental Congress who signed the Declaration of Independence knew what it meant; it meant that their necks would stretch on a gallows if their attempt at independence from Great Britain failed.

One great way to learn and appreciate the struggles that the forefathers encountered is to read the book John Adams by David McCullough. Another great way would be to watch the DVD film John Adams, based on McCullough's book. I have that series in my library and have watched all or parts of it several times. A special treat was meeting the screenwriter of the film who was in attendance at the recent Western Writers of America convention in Bismarck. Much good writing comes from that organization's members, and I hope the material I am now working on will be seen as worthy.

I Was Thinking...

I was thinking that...
* Mary sure can grow pretty flowers.
* I don't know the name of any of them.
* I'm glad I got done mowing this morning before it got any hotter.
* I will be surprised when the Repubs/Tea Partiers find someone who can utter two sentences without sticking his/her foot in his/her mouth.
* Mary sure is a good cook.
* A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
* I wish I was back in college studying harder.
* Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
* I wish I had read better literature way back when.
* Mary's eyes sparkle when she gets mad at me.
* The definition of a will is a dead give-away.
* I wish I knew a good Ole and Lena story - wait... here's one:

One night a torrential rain soaked up the countryside and the waters rose several feet. Mrs. Johnson was sitting on her roof with Lena waiting for help. She noticed a cap floating near the house. Then she saw it float far out into the front yard, then float back to the house; it kept floating away from the house, then back towards the house. Her curiosity got the best of her, so she asked, "Lena, do you see dat der cap a floatin' away from da house, den back again?" Lena replied, "Oh yeah, dats my husband Ole; I tole dat lazy such and such he vas gonna cut da grass, come hell or high water."

They say the trees are dying

The river running between Bismarck and Mandan still flows fast and deep. Sometime after the first week of July is the time the Corps of Engineers will gradually begin shutting down the gates at Garrison Dam. An article in the Sunday Bismarck Tribune spoke of another problem arising: the trees setting in water will die due to lack of oxygen. That will add to the catastrophe because of the unsightliness of dead trees. The forestation along the river is beautiful, thick and lush, but now that will be lost. The real estate mantra of location, location, location backfired in this setting for the coming years. The picture of the railroad bridge pretty well illustrates the point. The structure will be denuded, no trees will stand between it and me when I take pictures in the future.

One newly married couple featured in today's newspaper had to forgo their honeymoon and stay home to fight the water. Another lady just retired from her job but cannot go home to enjoy herself, they've rented a little apartment to see themselves through the flood. Those stories and hundreds of others are being told. The young marrieds will see themselves through into the future, but retirees don't have as many years left to rebuild.

At the Convention

The Western Writers of America convention still runs through tomorrow, Saturday. I've enjoyed being in attendance, meeting people from all over the country and listening to their tales. One acquaintance made, Dr. Richard Slatta, is the son of my high school freshman English teacher, and my school superintendent, his father. Fortunately, I experienced great instruction in my English classes for all four years and now was pleasantly surprised to learn Mrs. Slatta still lives in Oregon, and though she doesn't see well, she at 102 years of age remains clear minded and plays the piano. He says he will ask her if she remembers me. My journey with learning the grammar of the English started in high school, and then in college it really received a boost: I took a year of German from a taskmaster named Frau Braun. I still remember studying very hard one night and like an epiphany the world of language usage seemed to unfold. I've grown rusty since I did not practice it enough in my working years, but it slowly returns and I have pleasant thoughts about the whole affair.

Membership

This week the national convention for the Western Writers of America convened in Bismarck. It is a group I've always thought I would like to join, but being they always met elsewhere I never did get around to discussing my eligibility for membership through the mail. This week I worked up a representative portfolio of material I have written and presented it to the membership chairman. After looking it over he said the only thing left for me to do was hand him a check for dues. So now I am a bona fide associate member of this national group. I told Mary that I'd better crank out some good material to prove I am worthy of membership.

On Monday evening we attended an event featuring a panel made up of a few of the prominent members. One of them was the producer of the HBO series on the second president John Adams. I own the DVD set of this show and have watched it, three times because it is so well done and interesting. Today I sat in on a discussion topic of researching the military frontier, and one of the participants was the author of the book from which the recent movie "Crazyheart" was developed, and in which Jeff Bridges won the Academy Award for his acting performance.

Next year the convention is in Albuquerque. Hmmm ... I wonder...

Aging

I am a dues paying member of Anytime Fitness, an exercise club in Mandan. Some of the same people can be seen pretty regularly working out whenever I go, usually Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. One of them is a grizzled old Vietnam veteran whose license plate I've noticed bears the Purple Heart decoration. Stand-offish a bit at first but now easy to approach, I struck up a short conversation with him one day about how much harder it is to work out now that we've gotten older. Soon we were talking about how we could work long hours hauling hay bales when younger. For some reason I then thought I could quote Tennyson's line from the poem "Ulysses": Tho much is taken, much abides and though/ We are not that strength which in old days/ Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are... He was quick to reply, "Yah, and Popeye said 'I am what I am.'" His comic strip humor trumped my literary quote, and I've had a couple of good laughs with my wife when recalling it here at home.

I see the picture I took yesterday of the barn and windmill tower as a metaphor for the aging process and accepting the present state for what it is. They too have gotten old, but with a little fixing up could still be useful.

Blue Ribbon Heifer

How old was I, maybe 12? Proudly I stood holding the holstein heifer that I showed as a 4-H project. I was training her to lead when my mother caught me with her Kodak, and the picture shows, if viewed very closely that I was not using a show halter, but a stall tie-up that worked pretty well for this docile heifer. I showed her at the Lisbon 4-H Achievement Days and the day is still bright in my memory. There were 10 or 12 animals in this particular class and we did our thing circling in the ring under the gaze of the dairy judge. He started shuffling animals around
to place us, and after a bit, I found myself and heifer standing at one end of the formation. Naive as all get-out I think I expected further juggling. No, he had made his decision and my heifer stood as the best in her class and received a blue ribbon. The judge made comments about her nice conformation, but added one bit of advice: he said I should be using a show halter. Of course my mindset became rectifying this problem, and in the following weeks I solved it.

I spotted a nice white leather number hanging behind the counter in Merlin's Leather Goods store in Enderlin that priced out at a few bucks, and after going home and doing a little creative financing I bought it a while later. If my math serves me correctly this all transpired 57 years ago, and I still own that halter.

Stockyard Stories

Today a trip to the heritage library to read hundred year old news items from my hometown paper led me to this topic. Frontier journalism in those days, especially in the small town publications, printed lots of fun reading like this: "The Sheldon ball team was prepared to go to Leonard Tuesday morning and glom the cotton, or in plain lucid English, win the purse at the big ball tournament, but Jupitor Pluvius got in the job first with his sprinkling cart and Monday night and Tuesday morning the sky juice fell in such copious quantities that playing ball was out of the question..." and "The Owego ball team went to McLeod last Sunday and the swatters from that burg cleaned them up by a score 0f 11-5."

I liked this one, too: "A Brooklyn woman who sued a man for kissing her has secured damages in the amount of six cents. The man who got the kiss must feel pretty cheap." And the Mormons came around then, too: "Two Mormon elders were in Sheldon last Saturday attempting to convert our residents to the Mormon faith. We presume there is a shortage in the wife market and they were making an attempt to obtain a fresh supply. As far as we can learn they met with no success, even the bachelor girls being able to escape their eloquence."

The picture of the cattle car was posted to relate to this item: "The Southwestern Stockyards cafe is serving excellent meals a la carte to transients of the hobo genus. The vicinity of the stockyards is a favorite rendezvous for tourists of the side door Pullman class and when the pangs of hunger begin to afflict them they repair hither for the purpose of replenishing the inner man. Every man is his own cook and furnishes his own 'eats'". Seldom, if ever, have I ever seen reference to the stockyards in Sheldon, but I can still see it in my little-boy-eyes. It sat on the west side of town along the tracks, and I still clearly remember going to town one Saturday night and hearing one of my pals say, "I saw a bum hanging around there today, but Dad said to stay away from there!" So we did, but colorful stories were conjured up in our young minds.

How an image in a person's mind changes. When looking around the internet for cattle cars most of the references to them were associated with words like Bergen-Belson, Auschwitz, Jews, etc. My first thought would have been that of hauling cattle, but to many it means The Holocaust.

Tipperary

Several years ago I became interested in the story of a horse of which I have been trying to write my version. Numerous times I've written it and once even performed a version at the poetry gathering in Medora. The last re-write came about this past spring when in a poetry class I came up with the following version. Fellow class members liked it, or said they did, and one, Sheila Schafer, even purchased a hard-cover biography of Tipperary's story at the Western Edge store in Medora and gave it to me. How I came to be interested in the story will be told in another blog.

Tipperary by Lynn D. Bueling

When I was young Frenchmen came
buying herds of thousands of horses
like me to ship to their battlefields
and haul their cannons and wagons
through the mud and the bodies
of men fallen in the conflict.
They rejected me, my spirit too great
to be tamed for their use, but then my owner
thought that if I couldn't be ridden
my destiny lie in the rodeo arena.

With so many grimy hands holding
money wagered I earned repute
as the wild horse that couldn't be ridden.
The years passed and a couple did succeed,
once when I limped with my ankle injured.
My fury became hidden delight
when I threw the riders into the dirt,
even better yet when the ground was mud.

But I grew old, pain and stiffness settled
into my limbs, a ruined gladiator. To show
me off one last time, they paraded me
in Belle Fourche in front of a bandstand
while a band played my namesake "Tipperary."
I entered shaggy, sagging, mindless
of the spectators disappointed with my sad
appearance. But... that tune sent sparks
shooting through my veins, I threw
up my head, and stepped to the time
set by its measures, and I heard applause
again like old times past. The memory
lingered awhile after the music stopped,
but then I dropped my head and walked
away to face the storm.

Finally set free on a northern prairie
I wandered forgotten and stumbled
in drifts that came with the winter winds.
I died frozen, alone, with the wind howling
like the starved coyotes that gathered
to tear at my flanks. They found me
in the spring, my bones picked clean,
shining, white.

Things You Hear at an Auction

On Saturday we drove south and east of Mandan to attend Mary's sister and her husband's auction sale; they have decided to move off the farmstead where he has lived all of his 69 years and build a home in Mandan. Over the span of years a good deal of machinery and hardware accumulated so they liquidated to make room for their successors. I have always enjoyed hanging around auction sales and listening to the cry of the auctioneers, rubbing elbows with the crowd, and hearing stories being told. Flood stories floated: one I hadn't heard yet - deer are climbing the dikes and punching holes in the plastic with their little, pointy hooves.

I visited with the executive v.p. of the ND Stockmen's Ass'n (she happens to be my niece); her story of knowing one rancher in the northern part of the state who is forced to sell 350 cow-calf pairs illustrates the severity of the season and the hard conditions that have settled in. And rain it does! Last night a strong thunder storm dropped another inch of rain at our place with a strong chance of more rain each of the next seven days showing on our weather map. I thought the thunder and lightning had knocked out our wireless computer modem, but no... the tech guy came this morning. The only thing wrong was my screw-up in connecting wires to accommodate the new tv we hung in our kitchen yesterday.

Rock-lined Terraces

There's something about the randomness of these rock walls that I find attractive. I'd much rather see these shapes and forms than perfect rows and patterns. I took this picture standing on the lot that Mary's sister and husband purchased to build their home on and is only a few blocks from our home. It was when we drove up there to see their building site that I noticed this scene and resolved to return with my camera. A steep draw slopes off to the undeveloped area to the west, and lots of wildlife and cattle can be seen from the view. When I first saw them I was reminded of structured walls I'd seen pictured in magazines such as National Geographic that were located in places like Tibet, South America, and other places where tillable land was scarce and this was the answer to planting crops in severe inclines.

I first saw terraced land when I traveled south to harvest wheat in Kansas and Nebraska. There they make use of them on rolling land to stop the soil from eroding. The dirt berms were too steep to climb over with our machines so instead we followed their curves and combined parallel to them. Interesting patterns began to show through the stubble as we cut the wheat. By the way, the elevation of the land in the picture is about the highest Mandan offers. Stories of the flooding below us along the river will only get more grim. The crest won't hit until about a week from now, and a good deal of property will suffer.

Stepping Out

Mary tells me the name of this iris is "Stepping Out." And that is just what we did last night as we quietly celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary by going out to eat at the Texas Roadhouse. Quietly celebrating does not describe our wedding day, though. My friends and relatives who came over to Raleigh from the Sheldon area experienced a good party. Red Eye, a homemade concoction, if drunk too fast or too much really makes your knees weak, and that happened to some of the unwary. Kegs of beer, a sitdown meal, and live music really rounded out the day. Thirty seven years passed by just like that!

Watching "Pickers" on TV

Occasionally I like to watch the American Pickers tv show, and when I tuned in last night they visited a man who owned lots of old cars parked in dusty, leaky old buildings. For some reason the old cars made me think back to my old cars, especially my first one, a 1948 Chrysler, one like the picture above. Dad bought that car from Eph Loomer for $200 in 1958 because it had a fluid drive transmission that was easier for me to drive after my accident. This was in the
Elvis era when the young fellows were taking Fords and Chevies and customizing them to comply with the latest trends of the day. So here I came rolling down the streets in this big limousine. That car came to me in good condition featuring red plaid woolen seat upholstery, twin spotlights, and a tan paint job. I took lots of ribbing about my "tank" but for some reason no one ever complained about riding with me. I don't know of any pictures of that car and had to find this one on the internet. Years later, after I no longer owned it, I began thinking I'd like to have a picture and saw it parked in Smoky Sletmoe's pasture. When I finally got around asking him if I could tromp in there to snap some photos he informed me it had just gotten compacted and sold for scrap. Oh well, I've got my memories.

Then in another segment of the show the pickers found an Indian motorcycle that brought back some more memories. I had one experience with the old Indians. A friend, Larry Sprunk, owned one and offered me a ride one day. I got on behind him and held on tight (and tighter) as we began driving along a country road. As we picked up speed I knew he was driving fast, and at one point he hollered over the roar, "You just turned 80 on a dirt road!"

Another experience with motorcycles came when a classmate of my brother Howard, Lynn Bunn, came one day to help us move cattle. He was driving his 150 cc Honda, a very popular little bike in its day. After the cattle work was completed I asked him if I could take it for a spin and promptly killed the engine when I put it in gear. Thinking it was unpowered I gave it some gas the next try and I took off - straight into scrap metal piled at the edge of our shop. I twisted a knee in that wreck and limped around on crutches for a few days after that. I've since given up on motorcycles.

250 mm Zoom Lens, Part I

The University of Mary sits high on a bluff east of the Missouri River. On the back side of the library building one can walk close to the edge and look over. With my new zoom lens I looked to the north and saw this elementary school and a house near it that were well-ringed with high dikes of sandbags. Water is near, and with the river height projected to raise another two feet or so, it remains to be seen if all these dikes and hold or begin leaking or collapsing from the pressure. Literally hundreds of dump trucks are still hauling thousands of loads of clay to build miles of protection. A FEMA official inspected them and was featured on our TV news; he was well satisfied with the dikes' 40 foot width at the base and 10 foot width at their crown.

I am suddenly reminded of the flood in 1997 when it reached Grand Forks and inundated the downtown area and a fire broke out destroying several buildings. The slogan they adopted there was "Come Hell and High Water."

250 mm Zoom Lens, Part II

(For some reason I couldn't put three pictures on the same blog entry, still learning...)
We drove south a couple miles from the University of Mary and turned in where the sign said Kimball Bottoms. This is the scene we came upon. A couple of fellows had waded in and were having young man fun catching the carp that floated over the road. They had to be fast; this was not lazy water. From where I stood with the camera the sound of the water passing over the road sounded like a mountain waterfall. And this is just a little backwater creek! I might come back here when the river reaches its crest.



While at Kimball Bottoms, on the east side of the river, I visited with a guy on a motorcycle who told me a good view of the water could be had from near the Veteran's Cemetery, located on the west side. After driving over, I couldn't find a good spot for photos and decided instead to pull into the cemetery. This is a well-maintained site; many of the gravestones still displayed their Memorial Day decorations, and with bird-song filling the air, we found it very peaceful out there.

We're ready

I've been accused many times of being full of B.S. and today will probably not be an exception, but I've mentioned before that given our house elevation the only danger we have could possibly be a failure to the sewage system in town. So --- the above picture shows my solution.

The Missouri River did reach flood stage this morning, something over 16' but in the next two days will come up another 2'. Those 2' will be the problem, some houses just won't make it. Some property resides outside of the dikes that have hurriedly been constructed. Last evening I returned home from my camera class driving on I-94 and was amazed at the number of loaded dump trucks rolling on to their assigned dike building. Miles of dikes are being built and a projected four million sandbags have been filled. We North Dakotans always prove to be resourceful as illustrated by this true story:

After having dug to a depth of 10 feet last year, New York scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed a California archaelogist dug to a depth of 20 feet, and shortly after, a story in the LA Times read: "California archaelogists, after finding 200 year old copper wire, have concluded that their ancestors had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundre years earlier than the New Yorkers."

One week later a local newspaper in ND reported the following: "After digging as deep as thirty feet in his pasture near Sheldon, Sven, a self-taught archaelogist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Sven has therefore concluded that 300 hundred years ago, North Dakota had already gone wireless."

North Dakotans are such a proud bunch!!!