Good Times

Good Times
We spent the weekend in Medora attending and participating in the 21st Annual Dakota Poetry Gathering. It’s an event I hope to keep on my schedule. I took a turn on stage both Saturday and Sunday afternoons and got good audience response. The main thing that needs improvement is my guitar playing, but when I talk loud enough it drowns out the wrong notes. When you look out across the crowd that’s in attendance you see mostly an older crowd. I hope that younger performers get interested so that it continues on.
The term Cowboy Poetry doesn’t fit all that well, since only a few of the participants hold strictly to that point of view. A good deal of the work uses a more contemporary approach to rural life, myself included. I’m already thinking about future pieces and will enjoy writing them. One guy from a small South Dakota town that is celebrating a reunion this summer came asking if he could use the pieces that I performed on Sunday. I gave him copies provided he doesn’t forget who wrote them.
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The rain keeps falling here. It’s as green as I remember seeing this part of the country. Listening to radio reports tells us that crop conditions are nearly ideal. Crops, pastures and hay ground look good, stock ponds have risen, and everyone is in a pretty good mood because of it.
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The flap about competing restaurant chains shows a cheap shot. Some chain that’s not in this part of the country accuses Hardee’s in their commercials that Hardee’s does not use good parts of the Angus in their burgers, something like if you take the "g" out of Angus what’s left. I think Hardee’s was trying to get it stopped.

On My Mind

I have trouble with terminology that smacks of extreme power. Why they use the term czar in our federal government troubles me greatly. We have had a drug czar and an energy czar in recent years, but the latest - war czar - brings too much comparison to a Russia that experienced a bloody revolution. I think it is an ill-advised use of a term that can be substituted with a word that befits a democracy.
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We ate our noon lunch today in the Grizzly's Restaurant in the mall, and I could see through the tables to a television set hanging in the bar area. The headline I read spoke of another explosion in Iraq. We've become so used to these repeated events that most people don't give second thought to it. Our death toll there keeps rising, and I wish someone could explain to me what good we've done.
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I'm giving my attention of late to preparing for the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Medora this weekend. I told Mary that I hope I don't make a fool of myself up there on that stage. To prevent that I've been doing lots of practicing. The three pieces I've written for it deal with the severe winter of 1886-87, Teddy Roosevelt's experience in North Dakota, and an auction sale. A fourth piece is by Chris LeDoux - The Bull Rider, a comic piece. LeDoux was one heck of a performer but was felled by cancer a couple of years ago.

Forty Shades of Green

Timely rains have fallen this spring, and the many shades of green shine in the sunlight. Johnny Cash wrote a song he named Forty Shades of Green about his impressions of the countryside in Ireland. I think there must be 37 or 38 right here in North Dakota.
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It's a bit sad to read and hear what's happening in my old home town. The school is closing and they're having an auction sale to clear out the building. The building is on the market, too, and a group in the community meets trying to come up with a plan to save it to use as a community center. Its future will depend on someone putting up the money to buy it; the school board stipulates $2000 must be deposited before a bidder can be eligible. If someone does buy it, it will cost plenty to maintain it as a viable structure when you consider insurance, utilities, maintenance, etc.

The city hall fell to a wrecking crew a couple of years ago because it was deemed unsuitable for further maintenance. It left one big, blank spot at the end of main street. For many years it served as the destination for ball games, dances, carnivals, plays, meetings, etc. If the school building disappears, it, too, will leave a big empty spot.

During its heyday Sheldon was a busy place. Many farmsteads surrounded it, and viable businesses were supported with their wants and needs. I have a picture on the wall of my study taken of the main street sometime early in the 20th century. There stands a solid, long line of storefronts; in front teams of horses hitched to buggies and wagons line the walk. That scene disappeared, and now another scene is about to.

Lovin' Spring

The week has come and almost gone; I'd better get this little laptop of mine typing away and write at least one blog. I've been spending a lot of time riding a tractor pulling a disk. It is the most beautiful time of the year in the countryside. Spring green contrasts with the black tilled soil in the fields. Cattle, mostly the black variety, stand likewise in the greening pastures. The rolling hills, buttes, and valleys paint their shades and shadows everywhere on the horizon, and weeds have not yet begun to show themselves. Somehow flowery language seems a bit incongruous with my style, but that is the way I see springtime in the countryside.
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I have to make sure to mention a workshop I attended last Saturday at the Med Center One hospital. Ric Masten has made a name for himself as a poet and entertainer, but his latest gig is battling prostate cancer. According to him he should have been dead some years ago, but with his aggressive response to the disease he survives. When he discovered his illness, it had already spread from the prostate gland into various locations within his body. His message this day was that he did not sit and wait to die from the disease but began studying it and how to combat it. One thing I found especially interesting is that he's discovered only a handful of doctors in this country who specialize in prostate cancer. Most doctors who treat it are general oncologists; therefore many of them do not have the time to know everything there is to know about the disease.

He set out to learn what knowledg there is out there and inform his doctor, an oncologist, how he then wanted to be treated. He calls himself the "captain of his own ship." Whatever, he's lived beyond expectations. I'd heard Masten interviewed on our public radio station a few days prior to his visit and knew then I wanted to hear him speak in person. Before the meeting commenced, I shard this with him. He asked when he started how many had heard the interview. My hand was the only one that went up. He and I had connected in some elemental way, probably because I told him I, too, had interest in poetry. When the meeting ended he brought a copy on one of his books and gave to me as a gift. I've read it; he is a good poet.

Dreaming

Dreaming is a good pastime. Some favorite moments are spent dreaming. It doesn't matter much if they come while asleep or awake; they're all about as meaningful, which is to say they don't amount to much. The other night I dreamt I was running around with TV personalities Al Roker and Matt Lauer on some sort of driving trip. Now this really gets wierd: someone in their crowd of admirers dropped over from a heart attack, and Lauer cut him open and operated on him right there. He just happened to be carrying a heart monitor machine in the trunk of his car and was able to pull this guy through in fine shape. The last thing I remember of the dream was when I said I will get a good blog out of this.

Daydreams aren't much more substantive, although they have caused me to try different things which have certainly added lots of spice to my life. I dreamt big things about Alaska and what I could and would do up there. Well, I drove up the Alaskan Highway to satisfy this dream, only to turn tail and come back after about a week. Of course, I detoured through Colorado, stayed there a year in Greeley, and earned a master's degree. This was not part of the dream but came about as an indirect result.

In many cases the indirect result, or unintended consequences, of a dream is what we can expect. In the first case, I shared that improbable scenario with a small group and got a laugh from it, plus the idea for this blog. In the second case, it set me on the path I followed for the rest of my working years. Dreams still come and go, often something like the bubbles in a bathtub: they form, float awhile, and then pop, never to be thought of again. I think a person never gets to old to dream. Just maybe one of those dreams will hang around awhile to come to fruition.

Blather?

I thought spring arrived several weeks ago but got fooled when winter set in again. Now, however, I think it really came to stay. Yesterday we finished power raking the yard, and Mary is rarin' to go with her yard work. She's got dozens of plants started in the house. This morning I couldn't sit at the breakfast table where she sat eating and reading the paper. The rest of the table was covered with trays of plants. After a slight dust-up between her and me that resulted in her getting up and setting them on the floor, I was able to sit and eat my own cereal.

Media people throw around the term "news cycle." I am always perturbed when the foolishness in Iraq resulting in needless American deaths gets displaced off the front page by events that should be buried deeper in the paper or on television news programs. The attention given to someone like Anna Nicole Smith reeks of simple-mindedness. The lawlessness of Washington politicos dominates our waking hours. The Imus blowout receives attention leading us to think this is one of the worst things that has ever occurred.

The recent slaughter of college staff and students at Virginia Tech deservedly dominates media coverage now, but something of insignificance will arrive to displace it pretty soon. Maybe one of the British Royals will do something juvenile again or a movie star will be picked up for DUI. I often wonder what a person should do to counteract the influencing hailstorm of crap that's thrown at us most days. Turn it off, get a hobby, read classic literature, go on a solitary trek in the desert, get shipwrecked on an uninhabited tropical island, . . . ?

Anything Goes

Winter finally arrived in North Dakota. We've had more winter snows the last few days than we had when we expected it. Christmas was brown. April is white. It is good moisture, though, and I don't hear anyone complain about it. Of course, it will thaw all at once and run off into the river.
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Mary, her sisters, and sister-in-law will head to Minneapolis Friday for a girls' weekend. Knowing them, they will have fun. Dinner theatre, tours, shopping, etc. As for me, heh-heh.
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We attended a funeral south of Carson on Monday at a small country church. I felt a lonely wind blowing at that cemetery. That country down there is big with very few families living there anymore. We even crossed some cattle guards on an open range area. The people that do live down there need to drive many miles for anything, except solitude.
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My favorite radio-tv man got in trouble lately: Don Imus. He is a rough talker and deserved reprimanding. Many are calling for his firing instead of the two week suspension he did receive. All I can say is they would lose a good man if he was taken off permanently. That man has raised over $100 million for a variety of charities, all of which are important. Besides, he raises public attention and interest in many areas of governmental abuse and omission.

The Crash

Who understands why an image or a memory pops into view again after being burined in there for a few years. That happened to me a couple days ago. I remembered a bus tour we took to the Northwest where we experienced an unpleasant scene. We had pulled into our motel in Kalispell, Montana and were preparing to get off the bus and go to our rooms. In front of us stood a few people, and one of the girls was sobbing uncontrollably on the shoulder of a bearded man who I later learned was her father. Word trickled through our group that some sort of plane accident had occurred. The next day a newspaper account explained it more fully. The girl's sister had been a passenger on that plane, and a flyover by another plane determined that all four passengers were dead. Tragic! Then, a few days later another news report added a turn to the story: two of the passengers were alive, and since they'd been given up for dead, they had to walk out for help by themselves, a happy ending for a couple families involved. That story made an impression on me and I wrote a poem about it, even though I took some poetic license with the facts.

The Crash

Headed north to Kalispell
I pass crows
picking and bickering
over this savory prize:
the ribcage of a road-killed cub.

Ignorant of an obvious portent,
I drive on to the Flathead.
Autumn surrounds me -
gold leaves of mountain ash and poplar
dance with evergreen needles of the fir.

Woods and rocks climb above the road
and beyond: wilderness
where the Forest Service spends
its energy and dispenses
self-proclaimed wisdom.

At my cabin, heavy sky shrouds
treetops and rare patches of blue
open, then flow closed in the fluid
clouds. A plane flies across
one opening in a clear instant.

A government plane, I think,
then all that remains of this fleet
moment is the drone of the prop
screwing through the heavy air.
I hesitate to hear its pitch change.

My ears know that sound of overload,
the loss of power when an engine
fights to gain altitude. Inevitable,
I await the impact of plane and trees,
then the eerie, immediate absence of sound.

100th Blog

I've been lazy or short of time or inclination or something lately regarding this blog. Spring has hit Mandan and I've been working in the yard. I bought a power-rake blade for my lawn mower and have been raking out old dead grass. Yesterday a dust cloud followed me and my mower. It was dry and worked well. This morning there is too much moisture in the grass. I told Mary it was "tough." She hadn't heard that term used this way before. The culture I was raised in used that word frequently when working with hay or swathed grain when the moisture was too high to work well. I suppose the words damp, wet, high moisture, etc. would have worked too, but "tough" comes automatically, and that's why I came in to write. Trying to write daily has become a chore, so I'm going to enter a blog at this site once a week.

We had a fun weekend. On Saturday I attended an acoustic guitar workshop at the Heritage Center. I still enjoy picking up my guitar daily and want to improve, so this was the real deal for me. I'm amazed at the level of proficiency some of these guys have with their instruments. They make it look so easy, and there I sit struggling. I've read that a good way to forestall Alzheimer's is to learn something new. Well, that's what I'm doing. I do improve, but it goes mighty slow. I've committed to going on stage at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Medora on the Memorial Day weekend, and I might just take that old dreadnought up there with me and bang out a few chords.

Sunday, we enjoyed another event at the Heritage Center: a bluegrass concert by a local band named Cotton Wood. Bluegrass music, when done well, is a great audience pleaser, and this group filled the 3oo seat auditorium. The price for admission was good - free. We couldn't go wrong on that. Bluegrass seems to be gaining in popularity around this area. Anytime there is a concert, it is well attended. Well, that's all until next week.

Springtime

Signs of spring pop up all over the place. Mary has been itching to get out for some time and yesterday she hit it big time. Yard and garden stores advertise just the things we need and all we need is a few more days of sun and warm temperatures and things will turn green. I remember that turnover on the farm from winter to spring, and especially relished the time when I took off the heavy overshoes to walk around the yard and how light my feet felt. Calves and lambs were being born and machinery was being readied for the field. Here's a poem I wrote when I thought back on those days.

Seeds

The wheeling seasons turned spring
commencing with the sprouting
of the seeds. Dad would wrap oat
grains in a damp cloth and say,
"This is how to test percent
of germination," as he
set them in a south window.
Days later the March sun teased
pale tendrils from those inspired
kernels that proved their virtue.

It is easy to forget
such a humble act when we
sow our seeds of thought. They, too,
can be set in south windows.

Springtime

Signs of spring pop up all over the place. Mary has been itching to get out for some time and yesterday she hit it big time. Yard and garden stores advertise just the things we need and all we need is a few more days of sun and warm temperatures and things will turn green. I remember that turnover on the farm from winter to spring, and especially relished the time when I took off the heavy overshoes to walk around the yard and how light my feet felt. Calves and lambs were being born and machinery was being readied for the field. Here's a poem I wrote when I thought back on those days.

Seeds

The wheeling seasons turned spring
commencing with the sprouting
of the seeds. Dad would wrap oat
grains in a damp cloth and say,
"This is how to test percent
of germination," as he
set them in a south window.
Days later the March sun teased
pale tendrils from those inspired
kernels that proved their virtue.

It is easy to forget
such a humble act when we
sow our seeds of thought. They, too,
can be set in south windows.

Billions

The way the federal government does business causes dollar numbers to soar to astronomical heights. The words billions gets thrown around with little thought. I was curious if there were any way I could relate something in my personal life with the term billions, so I multiplied my age times the number of seconds I have lived on this earth and arrived at a paltry number, indeed. Now seconds of time don't seem like much, in fact it took quite a few to write this last sentence. My total comes to less than two billion.

Time does go faster the older you get. When a child three years old waits for his fourth birthday party he has to wait for a quarter of his life, so that year really drags by, but someone who is 65 that looks toward his 66th birthday only has to wait 1/66 of his life, and it's gone just like that.

For whatever it's worth, I had a hard time coming up with something in my life equal to the use of the word billion. Cells in my body are uncountable, so I wouldn't try to use that. Billions are spent each year on the war, billions are spent servicing the country's debt, billions a year are spent on pork barrel projects like Alaska's "bridge to nowhere." It won't be too long and we'll have to get used to trillions.

Dissent or Disloyalty

I'm sitting here today listening to news of Valerie Plame's testimony regarding her being identified as a CIA agent for "payback" reasons because of an editorial her husband wrote speaking against presidential policy. Earlier today I picked up the recent copy of Vanity Fair magazine where the article "The Night of the Generals" dealt with the six retired generals who spoke out against the war in Iraq. These two instances speak loudly about goings-on behind the scenes in government and politics.

The book I'm currently reading, a biography, All Governments Lie! The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone gives numerous instances of crap that would not be uncovered if it weren't for good investigative reporting. Here are a few examples Stone uncovered: a connection beween a U.S. company and Nazis to produce gas pellets used to exterminate Jews, profiteering oil companies were still selling oil to Hitler as late as November '41, the American Red Cross segregated blood supplies according to race. Stone was a busy man whose efforts did not earn many friends. He discovered for himself that dissent was equated with disloyalty, and a large file on him was collected by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. I remember well how people were tagged as disloyal when they didn't support Bush, Jr.'s war venture. How many reporters dared write negative news in the early stages of that war? Finally, an outcry arises.

Bona fide military heroes are not immune from excoriation. The book reminded me of the example of Max Cleland, a Vietnam veteran who lost both legs and an arm in that war and who lost his U.S. Senate seat because his opponent branded him unpatriotic when he opposed the U.S. entry into this war. Maybe the journalists who exposed problems at Walter Reed Hospital are unpatriotic, too.

Tuition

The North Dakota legislature is finally doing something positive, considering a free college tuition bill. The age of North Dakota's population keeps raising. College students heavily in debt cannot find enough high paying jobs to keep them in-state, so they leave to work in places that do offer adequate salaries. A graduate's future must look pretty bleak when he or she realizes just how hard it will be to pay their school loans.

On our recent trip to Texas we learned that that state offers incentives for resident students, so this is nothing new. A plan in Michigan is being used as the model for North Dakota which, if used, makes about 35% of North Dakota's students eligible for the program. Personally I think if should offer assistance to a larger percentage, but it is what it is, better than not doing anything at all.

Education should be the prize that everyone aspires to, and more students would go for it with a little help and encouragement. I hope our legislature decides that spending some of our huge surplus on this program is appropriate and passes this legislation.

Trains

I wonder how many times I cross a set of railroad tracks each day, something we take for granted. The rumble of the diesel engines and the banging of the tightening slack when a train starts to roll carries a long distance, but we think little of it. When I was a young boy steam engines were still in use. My senses became filled with the sights, sounds, and smells that poured from them. Steam whistles shrieked and coal smoke and cinders poured upward from their stacks in dense, smelly clouds each time a train left the station. Sometimes you could see the driver wheels spin and slip as they sought traction on the smooth tracks.

In Sheldon we had occasion to enter the depot whenever an expected piece of freight arrived such as our English Shepherd puppy Dad named Gypsy, a box or two of peeping chicks, or my J.C. Higgins bicycle from Montgomery Ward. The station agent's name was Earl Farnham who dispensed or received freight, sold passenger tickets, fired-up the pot-bellied stove, and kept the ticking Regulator clock wound. The Northern Pacific served the towns on this line from Fargo to Streeter, running one day west, then returning the next.

Enderlin was a Soo Line town and there was always train activity whether it was a switch engine working the yards, or a long freight train struggling against the incline south east of town that was being pushed by a helper engine, or sitting at some rural crossing waiting for a train with "a full head of steam" to pass. The trucking industry had not developed to today's level so the freight train carried most of the commerce plus a lot of passengers. Occasionally you could see a ragged hobo peering through an open car door.

Odds 'n' Ends

Some days are blank pages. There isn't much going on in my mind today. The Bismarck Friends of the Library are holding their used book sale this weekend. I didn't find much except for a couple dozen CD's I bought for 25 cents apiece. I've run through them quickly to see if they are any good, and I think about half of them will be worth keeping.

I found out the meaning of another maxim or saying the other day. Our language is full of them. They get taken for granted and usually we don't even know the actual meaning or origin of them. Making money hand over fist gets used often when someone has the good fortune to make a lot of money. It actually came from Roman times when a craftsman held the handle of an engraved die in his clenched fist, placed it on a blank coin, and struck it to impress the design onto it. He made money with his hand over his fist. It couldn't be any simpler than that.

Warmer weather and thoughts of spring flirt with us now. The calendar already reads March 9th and Mary has started sprouting seeds in her little planters set in the light of our patio door. Can mowing lawn be far behind?

Bloviators

The word bloviate gets thrown around by media gabbers, and I always thought it was some made up slangy thing. I stand corrected. My Webster's New World dictionary defines it: to speak at some length bombastically or rhetorically. At any rate, a lot of bloviating will take place as aftermath to the "Scooter" Libby conviction. Past and present occupants of the White House have been and are all about controlling information so as to make their administrations look good.

One of the bloviators likened the Vice President to the Wizard of Oz who hides behind the curtain. One of the jurors reported the jury wondered why the real culprits weren't on trial. Another said Libby is guilty of "canine loyalty" since he has appeared willing to destroy his future by not truth-talking.

The whole mess relates to the constructed case for getting into Iraq. One of the most appropriate statements made by the past president Eisenhower was when he warned America to beware of the military-industrial complex. What did he mean by that? That war material manufacturers love to make new war machines and try them out in actual battlefield conditions? Cheney worked for Halliburton. They seem to be profiting handsomely in Iraq. That's my conspiracy theory for the day.

A Little Shop

"A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude." Montaigne 1533-1592

I was attracted to Montaigne's quotation when I first saw it and have often thought of placing it on a plaque to hang on the wall of my shop. When we built this home I made sure to allow extra space in the garage for a shop, not because of this quotation, but because I had realized years before that I needed space for the very reasons he stated.

The concept of a workshop has been very important to me throughout my life. A small farm shop on our farm proved to be a favorite spot to spend many hours. The building measured only about 12' x 12' and had only one small four-paned window which didn't open plus the door. What it lacked in size and comfort was overshadowed by its boxes, drawers, and shelves full of "stuff": nuts, bolts, nails, scrap iron, hammers, wrenches, chisels, and a whole host of more miscellany. Anvil, vise, and drill press stood ready to use, and a became the blacksmith/mechanic whenever my imagination dreamed up projects.

I remember standing at the drill press in that hot, airless building and turning the ratchety wheel crank with my sweat-soaked arm. I drilled lots of holes, squirting drops of oil on the bit as it turned and cut deeper into the iron. I flattened, bent, and shaped to my specifications on the anvil or clamped in the vise. Even today I still love the sound of the ringing anvil when it is struck by a heavy blacksmith hammer.

Don't Take My Sunrise!

Here on the west side of the Missouri River we sit on a bluff that was most probably a sandy river bank long ago when glaciers melted. It trees weren't in the way we would be able to see that large herd of deer that has been wintering on the large flood plain field just below us. They creep stealthily into our yard to eat tender bark off Mary's bushes, a fact revealed by their tracks in the snow. The wild turkey flock can be likened to a patch of weeds since they always keep sprouting up. Pheasants, squirrels, and birds of many colors roam or flit about, too. There's an event that makes us sit up and look, though: the spectacular sunrises viewed through our patio door. To see such a thing of beauty is a great way to start the day!

Enter the evil developers! River side land, up and down the river, has become a prime target for profit minded activity, and who can blame potential home buyers for wanting a piece of the same thing we have here on our hill? It still rankles a bit, though. Land all over the region is being purchased at high prices for recreational or home site purposes; wide vistas of natural beauty become interrupted with man-made structures or are turned into private hunting estates which the common person cannot access.

Back to the river, I see development taking place all the way up to Washburn. Several houses have taken root on the east side of the river where they enjoy a spectacular view of the river at one of its most beautiful locations. Good for me, the capitalist argues. This is an example of the free market at work. Bad for me, the conservationist laments. I can no longer enjoy such a thing of beauty that all of us should be able to use.

Good Deed Daily

A hefty snowstorm hit us yesterday, then slowly moved off to the east where it dumped an even heavier load. (We're just days short of the ten year anniversary of the snow, ice, and flooding that occurred when we lived in Wahpeton, and a couple days away from the anniversary of the huge Blizzard of '66.) Snow fell the night before last and through the morning hours and piled high enough to make me glad I'd worn my overshoes while driving a state car around town. My rider made a presentation at the Mandan senior center and, while waiting for her, I was able to do the prescribed "good deed daily" that some boy scout cartoon character prompted impressionable young boys to do when I was a young lad.

A lady riding in her motorized wheel chair exited the building to cross the street to her living quarters. The small front wheels of the chair mired in the loose snow ruts formed by car traffic, and there she sat. With gallant intentions I walked over to her in her moment of need and pulled at the chair and got her going again. Score one for the good guy!

Five minutes later another lady came out balanced on her walker. She walked slowly and appeared to wince in pain. Should I offer assistance? Some people do not care to be helped when they can do for themselves. I chose to wait and watch, but I was somewhat embarrassed by not jumping to her aid right away and averted my glance for a bit. She had struggled through the worst of the piled snow, but when I looked in the mirror I saw she had stopped and bent over to reach to the ground. Her keys had fallen from her hand. Should I wait just a little longer to see how she does? I did and finally she retrieved them and proceeded slowly again, reaching the cleared sidewalk. Today I still feel guilty for not offering to help. My score for good deeds - pulling out one wheel chair, plus one; not offering to help the second lady, negative one; score for the day, zero!