Double-Takes

Fort Rice School & Outhouse

I saw something a few days ago that has been rolling around in my brain, but I just couldn't be sure if I saw it correctly.  I thought I saw in Barnes and Noble this title: Donner Party Cookbook.  Now at first blush that seems innocuous enough, just another cookbook, right?  But stop to remember what the  Donner Party was; it was a group of pioneer travelers headed west in wagons who were stranded in a mountain pass by a blizzard that blocked their passage. Trapped all winter,  they ran out of food, and resorted to cannibalism to survive.

Did I see it correctly?  You betcha, I did.  I looked it up on the internet and there it was, Donner Party Cookbook.  For me I thought instantly of cannibalism, and a sort of ghoulish urge led me to think the title was humorous.  Well, I still think it is.  The book looks legitimate enough, contains some history of the period, and does list recipes that people of that period followed.  I don't think recipes for human flesh were included.

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Some "double-take" signs -

- in a dry cleaning store - Thirty eight years on the same spot
-outside a country shop - We buy junk and sell antiques
-in a cafe - Customers who find our waitresses rude ought to see the manager
-in a loan office - Ask about our plans for owning your home
-on a telephone pole - Are you an adult who cannot read?  If so, we can help
-in Arkansas - Take notice: When this sign is under water, this road is impassible
-at a private school - No trespassing without permission
-in a maternity ward - No children allowed
-in a clothing store - Wonderful bargains for men with 16 and 17 necks
-in a funeral parlor - Ask about our layaway plan
-at a highway diner - Eat here and get gas
...   ...   ...
 A joke
A man walks into a bar with a giraffe, takes a stool, the giraffe does the same.  They proceed to order drinks, one after another, well into the night.  Suddenly the giraffe falls off his stool and lies unconscious on the floor.  The man gets up and heads for the door.  The bartender shouts at him,
"Hey, you can't leave that lyin' here."  To which the man replies, "It's not a lion, it's a giraffe!"

The Way It Looks From Here

 

My wife said for not having anything to say, I sure do it well.  Now I thought about that one for awhile and decided there was probably a multiple choice question in there.  Here are the choices:

1.) I was the victim of a left-handed compliment

2.) It illustrates the art of the gentle put down

3.) She damned me with faint praise

4.) All of the above

Like many another husband, I just can't fool her with blib-blab.

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I found the barn with the hilly backdrop near Huff, ND.  So many old hip-roof barns look like this or even worse.  One time they were a very common sight but have been replaced with tin sheds.  They stand as historical monuments celebrating a time that has passed

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Speaking of history I enjoyed reading a text and writing a review on this book -  Sioux War Dispatches: Reports from the Field, 1876-1877 by Marc H. Abrams.  The Bismarck Tribune receives examination copies and makes them available for citizen reviews.  Recently I saw the editor's announcement of the availability of this book, asked for it, and found myself the lucky recipient of it in the mail.  The book read well, and I found it very informative.  The author drew accounts from thirty-one different newspapers and dozens of various other resources to piece together a good picture of the period.

I couldn't help but state my own understanding of the period and said, "An often overlooked back story, yet present and significant, threads through these accounts.  With battles fought in the names of generals and chiefs, the soldiers and warriors receive little attention in the histories.

Just enough seeps through the articles to tell us that soldiering in the field during this time was harsh.  With only bacon and hardtack making up their field diet, scurvy set in.  Illness and injury went untreated.  Men traveled and slept through blizzards, mud, drought, mosquitoes, and pelting hail lacking adequate shelter...."

It was little wonder Custer's command suffered defeat, "The soldiers and their mounts were undernourished and exhausted from their march and Custer's cavalry could not maneuver well in the area of the final showdown."  So the Deseret News concluded, "The simple truth is that General Custer went out to slaughter the Indians, and the Indians slaughtered him."

Just musing

I've never had much desire to attend a Broadway play, but  in the case of Magic/Bird I would make an exception.  Their competition and friendship exemplify the way things should be. Unfortunately, the "critics" aren't liking it too much.
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Information overload is occurring now.  I sometimes think a person would be better off not listening to the news.  North Korea still acts like an outlaw that has never been arrested.  They will have to send out a posse. . . In politics if someone sticks their foot in their mouth, a roar of false indignation arises.  The latest on that one Mrs. Romney being called out to be quiet because she's never worked a day in her life. . . A Florida congressman gained attention when he said there were 80 communists in Congress, he being a republican and they democrats.  I remember McCarthyism. . .  The guy who shot Trayvon probably wishes he had never gone vigilante with a gun. . . I was steered to an article in the Business Week magazine of January 19, 2012 that carries the brash headline "The Man Who Bought North Dakota."  Reading that makes it easy to see why our state politicians keep fetching this oilman's coffee and polishing his boots.
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The Tribune regularly carries the Richard Cohen column.  As the years pass I'm developing a growing respect for President Eisenhower and today's column added to it.  The editor of the newspaper that Cohen began working for as a young  man assigned him to cover an exhibition of Ike's paintings at some gallery.  For some reason Cohen found himself the only reporter there, and who should come out of a side door but Ike himself.  Ike spent time with him and walked through the gallery.  History tells us that Ike was an amateur artist and not too good, but Cohen tried to flatter and patronize him and asked of one painting just what was the symbolism he painted into it.  Ike didn't bite.  Cohen quoted him saying, "Let's get something straight here, Cohen.  They would have burned this (expletive) a long time ago if I weren't the president of the United States."
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It's raining.  We needed it.  Only half an inch or so fell, but things already look greener.

Beauty in Black and White

While in the Bismarck Public Library today I picked up the Western Horseman magazine as I waited for my wife.  The front cover featured an action picture of a horse and rider and was rendered beautifully in pencil.  When Mary was ready I called her over to have a look.   I've forgotten the artist's name, but he is an accomplished artist.

Another good pencil artist is Don Greytak from Montana.  I met him once when he exhibited at an art show in Fargo.  He told me you can't do it any simpler, all you need is a pencil and a piece of paper.  We have a few of his prints hanging on our wall, and I have seen them in many places.

 I'm still amazed at the quality of old time black and white pictures taken with cameras as simple as a Brownie.  They had good lenses, even the cheap ones.  When it comes to reproducing  the pictures 50-75 years after they were taken, detail comes out very sharply.

A joke mentioning the colors of black and white features our friends Ole, Lena, and Sven.  Ole plans to take Lena out that night and when he gets home from work he goes upstairs to where Lena is standing in the middle of the bedroom -  naked.  "Lena, vhy are you standing in the middle of the room naked? - - - "Oh, Ole, I have absolutely nuthin' to vear!" - - - Ole walks over to Lena's closet and opens it.  "Lena!  Vhat do you mean you have nuthin' to vear?  Here's your white dress, here's your black dress, hello Sven, here's your red dress. . . "

Of course, all of the foregoing blib-blab is a poor attempt to introduce the really important item.  Our daughter-in-law forwarded a picture of her black and white diploma awarded by the American Board of Family Medicine stating that she is now certified as an M.D. in Family Medicine.  She and her family have traveled down a long road to get that piece of paper.  They will now move to Fargo where she will establish a practice and our son will continue on with his college student personnel work.

Sailing

 

We were probably the only two people in the U. S. who had never watched the movie Titanic.  Yesterday we joined the crowd.  It so happened our son and wife could not come for Easter dinner because of an illness in the family (dog had the flu).  So we looked in the movie schedule and Mary picked it out, the 3-D version.  Undoubtedly a good movie, I didn't particularly like it because one dramatic scene followed on the heels of another so that I could never relax.  The date it sunk: April 12, 1912, one hundred years ago.

Reminded of a trip I took once on  a ship, I dug out this picture taken in Alaska in the fall of 1968 as I stood on the dock waiting for it to arrive.  The ship was named the M. V. Wickersham and was a working ferry on the inland passage.  I had driven up to Alaska a week or so before but decided it was not for me to stay with winter coming on.  I drove from Anchorage to Haines in time to catch a ride.  I bought a ticket and surrendered my '66 Impala which the dockworkers drove in the hold with other vehicles.  Quite the experience it was!  The ferry system is a working system for Alaskans to get from one port of the state to another or move commerce along or haul sightseers like me.  Not a very large ship, It did a lot of rocking and rolling in the rough water.  Prince Rupert, BC was my  getting off 30 some hours later, a trip I've never regretted or forgotten.

To celebrate our 25th anniversary, we traveled north  to Alaska on Carnival Cruises which proved to be an entirely different experience, strictly tourist.  Each day we would float into a different port, disembark, and walk through the tourist trap businesses set up and waiting for us.  Anyone for Brazilian sapphires?  Some of it was authentic, though, such as the narrow gauge railroad to the top of Whitehorse Pass, a trail where thousands of gold-seekers once walked up to fail at prospecting. Another interesting stop was church at the Diocese of Alaska cathedral in Juneau, a ramshackle wooden building with squeaky floors and pews.

Other than those two trips, the only other floating I've done was in fishing boats.

Changing Your Mind

I belong to an organization called the Tanka Society of America to which I submit a few poems each time they publish their magazine.  Tanka poems are based on a Japanese form written in five lines.  The magazine asks for a poem to fit a theme and last time it was "Changing Your Mind."  They printed this one of mine:

when young
I planned to change
the world
blackened eyes and broken bones
made a new man of me
...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...

Our friend Ole changes his mind from time to time, too.  Take this one for example when he and Lena decided they didn't want to be married any longer.  They went to a lawyer to see about a divorce.  "How old are you folks?" he asked.  "Vell, I'm 96 and Lena is 92," said Ole.  "How come you are getting a divorce now?"  Ole said, "Vell, ve vanted to vait until all da kids were dead."
...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...
One more will be all I can stand - - -

Ole lived across the river from Clarence who he didn't like at all.  They were yelling at each other all the time from their sides of the river.  Ole would yell to Clarence, "If I had a vay to cross this river,  I'd come over dere and beat you up, you betcha."

This went on for years, til finally the state built a bridge across the river right by their houses.  Then Lena said, "Now's your chance, Ole, go over dere and beat that Clarence up like you've wanted to."

Ole said, "OK, by gosh, I think I'll do dat."  He started for the bridge but sees a sign on the bridge and stops to read it.  Then he turns around and comes back.  Lena asked, "Vhy did you come back?"

Ole said, "Lena, I changed my mind about beatin' up dat Clarence.  You know dey put a sign on da bridge dat says, 'Clarence is 13 feet, 6 inches.'  He didn't look dat big ven I yelled at him from across the river."

The Time It Never Rained

I just finished a book titled The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton.  The story centers on a very independent rancher in Texas who in the early 1950's refused all government programs of assistance to feed his cattle and sheep, while his neighbors readily accepted help.  He had built his ranch to be a sizable, profitable operation when an unrelenting drought settled in.  As the story progresses he is forced to whittle down the numbers of livestock and acreage to stay solvent.

A while back I copied a quotation that appeared in the movie Braveheart: Uncompromising men are easy to admire - but compromising men get things done.  As I read the book, I thought that fit the main character well.  While the community admired him for his independence, they also thought he was not being very smart by refusing some assistance.

The scenes of sheep shearing especially rang true for me as they brought back lots of memories.  The main character got extremely irritated when a young man with the shearing crew took hold of a clippers and made lots of bleeding cuts on the ewe's hide.  A good shearer does a clean job.  I can remember the differences in the shearers Dad used to hire, some were easy on the sheep, and some really cut them up.

Elmer Kelton, the author, is a man I would like to have met.  He knew the agricultural industry and because of his career as an ag reporter with a newspaper, he also knew how to write, and write well.  He died a couple of years ago and was held in high esteem by the Western Writers of America.  In a poll of the organization's membership he was voted number one as the best western author, and the book, The Time It Never Rained, as the fourth best western novel.

An article of remembrance praising Kelton appeared in the Western Writers of America magazine.  One of the quotes from admirers stated, "He gave us the real West of stockmen with mulehead horses, wild-hair bulls, broken fences, stove-up hands, the day-in, day-out hard work of cowboying, nutty neighbors - all of it, comic, human, heart-touching.

Family Tree

Occasionally a good television program comes along.  One we're enjoying now is Who Do You Think You Are?  It helps people find their deep family roots.  Two weeks ago the actress Helen Hunt followed trails of family history that researchers on the show helped her trace.  Last Friday Rita Wilson, wife of Tom Hanks, traveled to Greece and Bulgaria to discover her father's story.

She said that her father had always been very quiet about his background, so much so that she knew almost nothing except that he was Greek.  When he was young, his family migrated to Bulgaria for economic reasons, but his life there was not pleasant.  The army drafted him, and as they did to many conscripts, found him guilty of some misdemeanor and jailed him for three years to hard labor.  When he got out, he married and had a child who was half-brother to Ms. Wilson, a brother who she never knew she had.  The wife and child both died, and for undetermined reasons he got sent to a labor camp for a long stay.

Finally he gained his freedom, made his way to America, and lived a much happier life.  It turned out that he left family there in Bulgaria who never saw him again.  And he never talked about his past life.  My wife, who is deeply engrossed in researching her family history, told me that was a very  typical reaction.  They didn't talk so as to protect the family from cruel treatment who remained in the old country.  It seems as if the dictators had a diabolical inclination to punish family who did not escape the regimes.

I found a couple of short stories on the internet that speak of the harshness these people encountered.  One, written by Cynthia Ozick, was titled "The Shawl" and follows a starving mother whose nursing baby received no milk, its only pacifier was sucking a corner of her mother's shawl.  They were being forced along with throngs of other prisoners who knew not where they were going.  Of course, it does not end happily.

The other story, only two pages long, is Isaac Babel's "Crossing into Poland."  It had to do with quartering soldiers amongst the peasantry of the region they occupied.  He slept in a room with others.  He dreamt a nightmare, thrashed about, and was woken by the lady of the house saying he was pushing her father about.  It turned out he was dead, killed by the Russian army.  She said he pled with his killers "Kill me in the yard so that my daughter shan't see me die."  But they did as they pleased and she saw them murder her father.

The Stockyards Cafe

The archives of the old hometown newspaper coughed this story up one time when I was poking around. This was how the editor's creative writing described the fact that hobos passed through town and hung around the stockyards because of its proximity to the train rails.

"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."

The old folk singer Jimmie Rodgers, nicknamed The Singing Brakeman, sang this song about hobos, "All around the water tank/ waiting for a train/ a thousand miles away from home/ sleeping in the rain! . . .

Unless they've been living under a rock, everyone knows of John Steinbeck's stories of the hard life causes from drouth in the 1930's. In the very first paragraph of The Grapes of Wrath he wrote, "The sun flared down on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the edge of each bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in awhile they did not try anymore." This drouth set in motion a great migration to the west.

The well-regarded writer of rural life in Texas Elmer Kelton wrote in his novel The Time It Never Rained about the hungry wetbacks from Mexico who, coming north across the ranch of his story's protagonist, gladly accepted food from the rancher's wife. Just like today they were looking for something better.

The point to be made here is that it is happening again today. The so-called "Housing Bubble" burst and caused people to become homeless, too. The carrots held out by the real estate industry in cahoots with the bankers made houses too easy to buy. Some people bought too big, expecting inflation to increase the value of their homes, some treated their house like it was a piggy bank and dropped most of their money into the slot in its back. I find it heartbreaking whenever I see stories of homeless families forced to live in their cars, motels, with relatives, whatever. Anyone who reads history knows the displacement of people has occurred throughout history, but just knowing it doesn't make it any more pleasant.

Aftermath

It was necessary to visit my friendly prosthetist at Hanger Orthopedics yesterday for an adjustment, something I need to do a few times a year. The Hanger company came into existence during the first year of the Civil War. The story goes like this. In 1861 James Hanger's wound made him the first amputee of the Civil War. His biography tells that a suitable solution to walking again was not available. So he took to developing an artificial leg for himself, that first one being fashioned from barrel staves. Apparently it worked well enough to prompt the Virginia state legislature to commission Hanger to manufacture limbs for other veterans. Since its humble beginnings the company has grown to provide services from 600 locations.

One can only guess how many wartime wounds have caused amputations, but then we can only guess how many pails full of water are in the Pacific. I imagine dusty records in Washington could be tallied to an accurate number, but who cares. Whatever the count, there are too many. One source I read claims that among the Federal troops thirty thousand amputations were performed with a similar number among Confederates. The stomach turning facts tell of the high risk of infection and that due to frequent shortages of water, surgeons often went days without washing their hands or instruments. In spite of the conditions, 75% survived.

A company like Hanger can only grow. How many wars have we been involved in since the Civil War? Fresh client numbers are constantly being provided to them. Thankfully, the company and others like them keep developing new and better appliances and techniques to make life better for people who need them.

Sacred Sites

And our name shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, that is driven away with the beams of the sun, and overcome with the heat thereof. Wisdom of Solomon 2:4, New American Bible

Yesterday afternoon I attended another of the monthly "Conversations at BSC." The topic - Sacred Places on the Great Plains - reminded me of the Bible verse above. Things will be forgotten!

The discussion mostly centered on Native American sites in the region which they consider as sacred. So many of them were excluded outside the boundaries of the reservations, and they became forgotten or unusable by the Indians. One example pointed to the Medicine Rock site near Leith, ND, which is protected as a historical site by the North Dakota State Historical Society. A picture showed the rock with a small protective fence surrounding it; it's not big. In the Q & A session, an Indian gentleman in the audience stood up and told this story of how small the protected area was and how all the surrounding land belonged to a farmer who would not give permission for ceremonies to extend beyond the fence. For all practical purposes the site cannot be used by them for their traditional worship.

The picture above is Bear Butte in South Dakota, and the development in front resulted from the success of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. The butte is considered very sacred, but they cannot keep sightseers and hikers from encroaching on their ceremonial ground. They have asked visitors to refrain from visiting the butte in the month of June without much luck. Of course, all of the Black Hills was given to the Indians in an early treaty, but the discovery of gold changed that.

Other modern developments take away sacred sites. The flooding of the Lakes Sacajawea and Oahe covered much, and this is not to forget the property of other cultures as well.

The two gentleman moderators, President Skogen of BSC and scholar Jenkinson, prefaced the afternoon with a brief rundown of a recent trip to Europe and their break-away jaunt from their group to track down some historical topics, one of which was to see the site of Mussolini's death in Italy. I think the whole afternoon was well setup when they said they asked around for information for the World War II era dictator, but couldn't get much satisfaction as they asked mostly younger 30ish people. This group wasn't any better informed about historical matters than 30 somethings anywhere else.

Maybe the George Santayana quotation I memorized years ago teaches a horrible truth: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Culture Clash

I attended my last session at the Osher Institute last evening, the one dealing with the military frontier. The time goes too fast and all three topics I attended , Myths and Legends, History of Rock and Roll and this one, should have lasted longer. But I can always look forward to the new material next fall. In addition, free movies once a month have been shown. A few days ago we attended "Sweet Land." The blurb in our catalog read thusly: Norwegian-American farmer Olaf Torvik and his rural Minnesota community must struggle to overcome years of anti-German propaganda and prejudice when he discovers that his mail-order bride, Inge, is not only a German but also an accidental Socialist. . . . award winning tale of love's ability to triumph over ignorance. It seemed so true, especially since both my wife and I have knowledge of that happening in our families. In the movie, Inge found herself being shunned, talked about, ignored, whatever. The poor girl did not understand English, but headstrong, she made herself learn as quickly as possible. Olaf was a good man, a Norwegian bachelor farmer like Garrison Keillor often talks about on his weekly radio show, but felt the influence of his culture. They did come to love each other and everything worked out for the good.

Dad's family lived at Nome for a few years when he was young. Nome was a Norwegian community but Grandma, a German from Russia, never felt comfortable among the Norwegian speaking folks, sometimes thinking they were talking about her. Then it was that they relocated to Sheldon, and I - a result of the rest of the story.

Ma's family experienced cultural difficulties, too. Her father was drafted into the army in World War I while still a citizen of Norway. When he married Grandma she lost her citizenship because of it. He went to war and fought in bloody battles but no slack was shown to Grandma. She had to go through the citizenship application process when she wanted to receive social security payments.

Mary's parents, both from Raleigh, ND, were of different German cultures in Russia. For instance, the word potato was voiced as krumbera (sp?) by her mother and kaduffala (sp?) by her father. Some of the nuances in their respective cultures clashed a bit and were looked on as being a bit odd by the others.
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p.s. This blog is number 601. I've been bloviating a good deal, it seems. But there is still more to come, so why count.

The March Horse Sale in Mandan

The March horse sale in Mandan,
right at the edge of the West,
parking lot full, (and lots more),
horse trailers, pickups, and cars.
"Don't park three deep in a row,"
the sale catalog warns all.
Step inside - the hallway's full.
Sans boots and big hat, you feel
out of place. Climb the stairway,
look down in that arena.
A mare for sale and her rider
circle to the auction chant
that's unintelligible
to ears not schooled to its pleas.

Buddy enters the sale ring,
bay gelding quarter pony,
ridden by a lad, "The kids
use Buddy in the pasture
moving cows and checking fences,
handles any job you give."
Twelve hands high and twelve years old,
he brings four and twenty-five.

Here comes Twobuck Cracker Jack,
AQHA dun gelding,
"Cracker is a big, stout made
gelding that's a true ranch horse.
He has a true one hand neck
rein, pivots, side passes and
backs." A pretty little thing
rides him in, slips the halter
from his head and loops a loose
rein under his neck. Sure 'nuf,
he still does just what she asks.
The gavel raps, it's final,
four thousand dollars he brings!

Princess and Peggy enter -
a matched team of three year old
blue roan mares "that drive single
and double and also ride."
And such showy harnesses
they wear, dozens of nickel
studs shine, leather's deep-dyed
black with polished balls on hames.
Bid them separate times two -
they sell fourteen-fifty each.
From a colony down south,
their pitchman wears a full beard
and a black hat. His young son
comes with, apple not far from
the tree, suspender askew.
Now they sell the harnesses
almost half the horses' price,
six-fifty for each times two.

A little taste of the West,
some shit on the shoes, sour arm-
pit smells of honest sweat, a
few hundred of these horses
sell, twice a year it happens
here: Hermanson-Kist Horse Sale.

Harvest Memories

Set back amongst the weeds and trees in Fort Rice, I spotted this old threshing machine. I think those iron and steel wonders might just last forever being that they've been constructed with so much galvanized metal. As we drove around the rest of that day I began reminiscing about my days as a custom combiner in Kansas and Nebraska. Mary found it interesting and insisted I write-up some of those experiences. Here is one of them.

In the spring of 1965 about to finish my first year of teaching, I was approached by a man asking if I would like to accompany him south to Kansas and work for him as a custom combiner. After giving it some thought, I agreed to accompany him during my summer break. To get to southern Kansas I had to drive an old truck on which was loaded a combine complete with its 14 foot header, a three-day, white-knuckle experience. We finally arrived in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, and began looking for acres to harvest. A patient man, the owner was content to wait until someone came up to ask for our services. Eventually one did.

It was a hard-luck story he gave. His wheat crop, located near Lake City, looked especially good until the Medicine Lodge River flooded and left it flat on the ground and strewn with branches and logs. No custom operators were interested in tackling the job because of the condition of the ground. Wanting to get started our boss accepted and we moved to Lake City. The story ended well for the farmer: we salvaged 60 bushels per acre for him. For us, it was a headache, what with stopping the machine to clear away branches, running the headers as low as we could to the ground to pick up the prone straw, and continuously getting stuck in muddy spots.

And rain fell occasionally which caused us to park our machines and wait for dry weather. What to do during our downtime stretched our imaginations some. We tried fishing one day and sat on the sandy bank where we had been cautioned to watch out for the bites of crayfish. We drove a few miles to Sun City and drank too many schooners of 3.2 beer. We sat in a little country store, the only business in town, eating cheese and crackers and listening to the yarns of the locals.

From a local we learned the sad story of the man whose acres we were combining. His only son and heir had committed suicide, his wife was losing her mind, and the maintenance of their house and buildings was being ignored. He drove a grand old Chrysler Imperial that had driven its best miles and his well-fitting clothes were soiled and neglected. Everything about him spoke of a well-to-do past, but now his only motivation seemed to be to survive a bit longer.

The success of our harvest work did please him and he said so. I often wonder how much longer he held on and what has become of that little collection of buildings that comprised Lake City. I still remember one encouraging sign as we drove out of town that last time and looked into my rear view mirror: a Case tractor plowing his red Kansas soil in preparation to plant another crop.

A few years back I wrote this poem in remembrance:

I recall another place,
another time: winter wheat
fields near Lake City, Kansas.

Summer, nineteen sixty-five.
A custom combine crew, we
sat parked in Medicine Lodge

looking for acres to whet
the appetites of famished
machines we hauled chained to trucks.

Russell Lake came - bottom land
flooded, bumper crop flattened,
now spurned by would-be cutters.

(Who'd take their machines to fields
of hidden driftwood and mud?)
He proffered, we accepted.

"Well, boys, we came to cut wheat.
Put your headers way down low.
Let's get his wheat harvested!"

A gentleman, Mr. Lake.
His world showed little future,
his heir shot himself, his wife

talked strangely to canaries,
and white paint peeled from his home.
Our work cheered him, though. Bushels

flowed at sixty per acre.
(I'll be able to pay bills.")
Fields harvested, I recall

my rear view in the mirror...
his Case tractor plowing red
Kansas dirt for next year's wheat.

Fort Rice, ND

Very few inhabited houses exist in the town of Fort Rice. This picture of the school and an outhouse illustrates the general appearance of the town. The only place I recall that could be termed a business was the junkyard located right along Highway 1806, as we turned in. Dead as the town is, it once held a place of prominence. Fort Rice came into existence as a fort in July, 1864 when General Sully passed through on his expedition to punish Indians who resisted the westward push and place them on reservations. It was named for a Civil War general killed in battle.

The ground hadn't dried enough yet at the actual site of the fort to allow us to drive in, but a bit of searching turns up some facts of how it looked. Sully ordered his men, several companies of the 30th Wisconsin Infantry, to build a stockade of cottonwood logs measuring 510 feet by 500 feet, two log blockhouses 20 feet square, and a number of log buildings with sod roofs.

I learned a new term with the following information. The Wisconsin troops were replaced with six companies of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Infantry who, in reality, were Confederate prisoners of war to whom were given the name Galvanized Yankees. Of the choices these men were given to be repatriated, they chose service on the western frontier.

As with service on any of the frontier forts, life proved harsh. That first year, 81 men died from scurvy, diarrhea, typhoid fever, or miscellaneous other diseases, and seven died in combat.

Fort Rice served as Sully's base of operations when he led his men out on expeditions in 1864-65 and hosted several Indian council meetings. Indian attacks did occur on the men of the fort, while probably not from frontal attacks they needed to be alert for attacks on the hay and logging crews as well as raids on the horse and cattle herds.

Cannonballs

On Saturday the temperature reached into the 70's and the whole town and countryside seemed to come alive. Just as the grass knows when to grow or the geese know when to nest, so too do the fishing boats on the Missouri know when to slide into the water. I think I saw at least three dozen of them, along with some shore fishermen.

We drove south twenty miles on a short camera safari past Huff onto Fort Rice. We saw lots of shacks and junk cars which I think make interesting subjects, but we also saw quite a few "cannonballs" that, over the past, people have taken from the river. Those in the picture set close to the road along someone's sidewalk as ornaments.

In 1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition came upon numerous cannonballs at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers. Captain Clark, on Thursday, October 18, 1804 wrote in his journal: "Set out early proceeded on at 6 mls passed the mouth of la Boulet (French for Cannonball River). . . above the mouth of the river Great numbers of Stone perfectly round with fine Grit are in the Bluff and on the Shore, the river takes its name from those Stones which resemble Cannon Balls. . ."

As I know the story, scavengers have pretty well cleaned out the river of the "cannonballs." They have been moved to ornament people's yards. If they had survived nestled in their natural state, they probably now would be under the protection of some official park designation, but too late is too late.

The river originates in rough country north of Amidon, and like many of the rivers and creeks in that part of the state, it resembles a long snake in a big hurry with nary a straight line in its wriggling back.

The Post

On a visit to the Barnes and Noble store I picked up a new book on Eisenhower: Eisenhower in War and Peace. A big book, it seems to give a fairly balanced account of the man, warts and all. I ran across one amusing anecdote in the biography that occurred after he moved his office across the channel to France after D-Day. Some farmers made a gift to him of a milk cow to furnish his office with fresh milk. Three of his staff members sat down with a pail, but their efforts to turn the spigots on were to no avail. Ike came by and after seeing them struggle told them to step back, sat down on the stool, and easily filled the bucket. He said something like city guys don't know anything. Stories in history like that one make it interesting.

The picture above is a historical boundary marker from mile 91 that may well have come from the North-South Dakota border. It sticks in the ground at "The Post," just a couple miles south of our house and makes an ironic statement. The history behind it just might be lost and I don't know where a person could find the information. A couple years ago I was steered to the North Dakota State Water Commission website where they have access to the original survey of North Dakota and the comments in the handwriting of the surveyors. Randomly I clicked into a spot of Ransom County near the present site of Sheldon and an entry dated August 10th, 1870 came up. Here is one entry: Drove charred stake and post in mound for quarter section corner. Another comment: Land low, level & wet. Another: First rate land, level, low and sandy.

I intend to study these surveys a bit more in the future since I think an interesting story can come from them, if I only live long enough, that is. This country had a lot of growing to do after this date. To think that Custer didn't get his due for another six years. A survey crew consisted of several men with various duties.

A while back I'd d0ne some research of the original surveys. It was in 1784 that Thomas Jefferson proposed the pattern of squares, and on 1785 Thomas Hutchins, the first official geographer of the U.S., unfurled a 22 yard long surveyor's chain on the west bank of the Ohio River. The Northwest Ordinance had been passed that year that called for "disposing of lands in the western territory" and required him to lay out lines running east to west 6 miles apart, make a grid of squares which were our townships 36 miles square.

Wednesday blank

Sometimes a guy just draws a blank. Nothing much comes to mind. An empty wagon illustrates it better than anything. We had two beautiful days, almost balmy feeling, and now, today it's cold and blustery again. The seven day forecast holds promise for more nice days, though. Mary puttered around in the yard already. Her fingers itch to get out there to dig, plant, and scratch mosquito bites.

The Repubs held their caucus in North Dakota last night; Santorum won. I thought it amusing when Santorum's people started crying today that they wish Gingrich would drop out because he prevented their man from winning a couple states where Romney won. Romney struts around in faded blue jeans trying to look like a common man but when he was asked if he knew some race car driver a few days ago he responded that he didn't but did know a couple men who owned the team. Foul-mouthed Rush Limbaugh found a limit to his rants about a woman testifying about contraception when many advertisers pulled their ads from his show.

Jokin' around

Yesterday I listened a bit to Garrison Keillor's show which featured sick jokes. He told this one on Ole. Lena got to thinking Ole hadn't been amorous enough of late so she got him an appointment with a therapist. When he returned he started singing love songs to his John Deere tractor. Lars drove up, "Vat in the world are yoo doing, Ole?" "Vell, Lena sent me to the doctor and he said I should do something romantic to a tractor." :-) ---Yeah, I know, it took me a couple seconds to figure it out, too.
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We were in Staples on Saturday, and as we left, I had to wait a bit to get into my car because an older couple parked beside us had their doors open to load their purchase. As I stood there I noticed the lettering on the back of his jacket saying something like Senior Athletics of Utah. I mentioned it and he said he's participated many times and has won lots of medals. "I don't know how much longer I'll be able to do it, though. I'm in the 90 to 95 age bracket." Then he got in his car and drove off.
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My wife stayed with her dad yesterday so I went off to a movie that she did not want to see: Act of Valor. It's a good thing we saved the price for her ticket. That movie had received quite a bit of attention lately because they used actual Navy Seals as actors and followed them through made for the screen scenarios. It appealed to the lowest common denominator. I saw more guys getting shot through the brains with blood spattering the wall behind them than I've ever seen. A lady hostage had a drill bit drilled through her hand to make her talk. A Seal fell on a grenade to muffle the blast and we saw his body rise from the explosion. The story line was weak. It tried to follow the personal life of one whose wife was expecting. Of course, he was killed in action. I give two thumbs down on this one. I thought it would have some value because of its controversy. Some ex-Seals thought it gave away too much of their tactics. Wrong.

The Pine Tree Patch

I've been enjoying a bit of research and reading about the army division my Grandpa Sandvig served in during World War I. The patch of a pine tree was worn on this division's uniform sleeve, being adopted because the men in this unit came from states where pine trees grow (so goes the legend). Therefore they were called the Pine Tree Division. The 91st Division had another nickname, though, that was much more interesting: the Wild West Division. Men from California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, and Alaska comprised the 27,000 men of this group who trained in Fort Lewis, Washington.

Presently, I am working on a magazine article and am finding a good deal of information that I never knew where to find before. North Dakota soldiers were never mentioned as being part of the 91st and I often wondered how Grandpa found his way in there. An answer came when I saw his regiment, the 362nd, contained mostly Montana cowboys. So the stretch wasn't too great then that they reached into the neighboring state to find a few.

The 91st adopted as their motto, "Powder River, let 'er buck!" Supposedly this came from the Wyoming cowboys where the Powder River runs. I've been interested in this topic for several years, but with the movie and book War Horse, I made myself reacquaint with it. When this outfit got into France they were transported part ways in railroad cars called "40 et 8" which meant 40 men or 8 horses could be hauled in them. One source said that with these broad-shouldered cowboys, though, 40 were too many.

One story told by a family member told of the time when Grandpa was on the troop train headed for training camp in Washington. The train stopped at a station in Montana to pick up some men. There, a sergeant started barking orders at them. One cowboy, not yet schooled in the ways of insubordination, hauled off and decked the sergeant. Apparently, whenever the train stopped after that armed guards stood ready.

The war effort made on these plains has many facets to it, one being that many thousands of horses were gleaned from the countryside to be shipped overseas to serve on the battlefields. Many thousands of these animals died from wounds and disease. Another story I want to tell is that of one named Tipperary, a horse too wild to be accepted for army duty but went on to be a famous rodeo horse.