A Well-turned Phrase

I love to read and mull over a well-turned phrase. I enjoy some of them so much that I've written them down in notebooks to refer to them. One of my favorites was written by a regional author, Frederick Manfred, in his book Duke's Mixture. This scene comes from a gathering of some fellow authors at a lake: "One day Robert Bly was holding forth, and after a half hour got about a wild horse and began riding over us all with his provocative theories and strong opinions... Finally Tom McGrath had enough. Robert happened to touch on one of Tom's territories with his sharp hooves..." I still remember when I read it for the first time and how well I thought the author used his words to explain how the participants reacted in this setting. Here are some more from a variety of sources.

- I saw FEAR in front of me like a monster.
- He possessed a bull-huge heart.
- Voices can become as angry as a blizzard...
- Knowledge is an island. The larger we make that island, the longer becomes the shore where knowledge is lapped by mystery.
- For the first time I became sensitive to things unsaid, that the waves of sandhills rolling toward the town held a stormy and faintly ominous look.
- And I realized that those golden wild horses of other days had slipped more deftly out of my uncle's rope than he knew, and would never be caught again.
- I await myself in the future. Anguish is the fear of not finding myself there.
- Let us cross the river and rest under the shade of the trees.
- Some day you will be one of those who lived long ago.
- The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
- Why, a good rain would keep these folks entertained for weeks.
- Where you see a man plowing there will be gulls following him and pecking at the furrow.

Just Havin' Too Much Fun

The wind blows steady and the red line in my thermometer stays high in its little tube. I'm hoping expert predictions of higher priced natural gas this coming winter are wrong - 30% higher. Does the incessant chirping of these crickets outside my bedroom window mean anything? I remember lots of deep-snow winters, maybe another one is due.

Yesterday I sent draft copies of my book of poems to artists for cover design (that would be my two sons). I'm glad it's reached this state because, in its printed format, I noticed a few glaring problems that need rewrites, maybe even substitution. I have time, though. A phone call yesterday gave me another assignment, anyway, that's going to take up the next month of my time.

The local cancer society started an annual festival, for what reason I'm not sure, but they've been looking for entertainment. Someone gave them my name as being a cowboy poet, so here came the phone call wanting my participation. Rank amateur that I am, I still couldn't say no. So I'll be preparing for that event over the next few weeks. I am going to make it clear, though, that I don't want to be tagged as a "cowboy poet." I think a "country poet" handle fits more comfortably. Two half hour shows need to be prepared for. I pulled out the old six-string guitar last night, and it felt clumsy. I've been playing a little four-string lately, so I will adapt that for my purpose. I'll just tell the audience that I left it out in the rain and it shrunk.

Moon Shadows

Warm temperatures, dry ground, and clear skies have hung around here for a few days now. Saturday night we attended the Chuck Suchy and Family concert a few miles south of here and watched a full moon rise in the uncloudy sky. The full moon's presence
was not a phenomenon unrelated to the concert since Suchy has been setting the date of the event to coincide with it. The audience sat facing south towards the wall of the hundred year old Bohemian Hall which made it easy to watch the moon start its nighttime arc in the sky.

Sleeping with an open window these past few nights has let the loud sounds of a multitude of crickets enter the bedroom. I think on Sunday night their volume even woke me up, but maybe it was my sixty-six year old bladder crying out for attention. Whatever, when I walked past the window I parted the shades to look out and saw a strong outline of the house against the lawn, a moon shadow. Last night I paused to look at it again. Two days past full, the shadow already seemed a bit fainter, but it was unmistakably there.

The fact that I'm getting older and living in a city environment both seem to work against my awareness of nature and all its facets, but I remember life on the farm opened my senses to the seasons, weather, moon cycles, etc., and I still see a bobber dancing in the moon after Grandpa brought me home from a day of fishing. Cat Stevens wrote and sang a song titled Moon Shadows, "I'm being followed by a moon shadow...," a song about finding hope in any situation.

Birthday

Today is wife Mary's birthday, and we have a full weekend of activities planned for her. It began last night with tickets, fourth row center, for the Garrison Keillor Rhubarb Tour. It was a great night of entertainment, a three hour show that included lots of singing and, of course, one of his famous, long, rambling monologues that had the large crowd of several thousand laughing out loud and often. Instead of the tightly scripted and timed two hour radio show format that we saw on the UND campus a couple of years ago, this one gave us a bit more with an extra hour. Keillor is a true genius. Blessed with terrific memory, his ability to talk and sing extemporaneously amazes me, and he surrounds himself with great talent. Susie Bogguss, one of our favorite country singers, came to Bismarck with him and Keillor's band can play any licks. He also features a sound effects man standing beside him who reacts with appropriate sound and gestures when Keillor tells wild, improbable stories, some of which are intended to stump the sound effects guy but which never do. Three hours passed by quickly.


Today started with my gift-giving of a new bracelet for her to wear. I think she likes it. This noon we will eat lunch with some of her family, and then this evening, per her choice, I'll take her to her favorite eatery, The Texas Roadhouse. Later we will attend an evening session of a bluegrass music festival in Bismarck and listen to some good music.

Tomorrow, Mary will attend a breakfast meeting of her rose club at the zoo, and in the evening we plan to drive a few miles south of Mandan to attend our state troubadour's concert at the Bohemian Hall. Chuck Suchy and his family have performed there each summer for the past several years. Suchy has attachment to the hall since he grew up and has lived in that rural neighborhood all his life. He wants to keep the memories of good times there alive and talks of social events he remembers attending as a boy. Whatever, he possesses unique talent as a guitarist, songwriter, and singer and puts on a good show under the stars.

If she has any energy left come Sunday, I plan to take her to a movie --- Tropic Thunder --- for even more entertainment. Happy Birthday, Mary !!!

Standing in Two Worlds

Some things do not seem so long ago. The world I was born into was not so complicated as I’m finding it now. (For example with a few wrenches and a screwdriver a shade tree mechanic could tear down a an oil-burning tractor engine and put in new piston rings). Not many people can work on a vehicle at home anymore. We had an experience last week which I hope I do not have many of. Mary called me from Kohl’s Dept Store saying our car would not turn over when she tried starting it. With that, I jumped in the old pickup and drove over, not knowing if I would need to call AAA for a tow to a mechanic or what. As I stood there with the hood raised a gentleman waiting for his wife to come out of the store strolled over. We talked it over and came to the conclusion that our car had a dead battery. I did not have battery cables for a jump start, but Lowe’s is in that same complex of stores so I went in and bought a set of jumper cables. He assisted me in getting it started, and I had every intention of having Mary drive it home, and then I would then go buy a battery in downtown Mandan. She killed the engine. It needed to be jumped again. I raised the hoods again and hooked the cables up and told her to turn it over. Nothing. I reversed the cables. It started. Then she said some lights won’t go off, ABS and brake, the AC stopped blowing cold, and on driving it home discovered the cruise control didn’t engage. I had committed a stupid error of judgment by not being patient and hooking the jumper cables up correctly.

It was late Friday afternoon, and I did not try to find a mechanic, thinking I can wait until Monday. We drove the car all weekend as is, but I asked a car salesman acquaintance of mine if he could recommend a good private mechanic. Yes, he could, and I looked him up first thing Monday morning. Some good old boys over the weekend had told me, “Oh, boy, I hope you didn’t burn out a computer unit,” or “Man, you can really screw the engine up if you hook them up wrong!” I left the car at the shop full of fear that I had set myself up for a costly repair bill. Luck was with us! Our new found mechanic was a true fixer. In the end he did not install a single new part. Instead, he patiently went through a full series of diagnostics, downloaded schematics off the internet, eliminated this, by-passed that, etc. His final analysis found a wire leading into a fuse box under the dash had gotten fried. He pulled it out, scratched off the sooty coating, took a dental pick and scratched the inside of its socket, put it back together, and it runs perfectly. His bill: two hours of labor. I shudder to think how some mechanics would have started sticking new parts into it, and in the end might still not have found the problem.

Now, if I could get someone to show me how to run the damn publishing program I bought for this computer so I can print my chapbook of poetry!

Prejudice

"Reason has very little influence in this world: prejudice governs." William Tecumseh Sherman in a Civil War letter

I ran across this quote a few weeks ago and thought and thought about it and have decided it rings true. One of my dictionaries says it means a judgment or opinion is formed before the facts are known. A Ford is better than a Chevy? Mandan is a better place to live than Bismarck? Blondes look prettier than brunettes? Robert Frost is a better poet than Carl Sandburg? Private health insurance is better than universal health care? Lawyers are mostly a crooked lot? The US of A is the best place in the world to live?

All of these examples can be argued because they cannot be proven to the satisfaction of everybody. I walk on thin ice regarding one of them - my wife is brunette. It is in the eyes of the beholder, a person's opinions lean one way or the other. Hardly anyone cares enough to find conclusive proof to support his contention, even if it exists. Most of the time we exhibit an automatic reflex in matters of argument. People often think of prejudice in matters of race relations, but it goes further than that: religion, ethnic foods, governmental systems, etc. Ask a Christian what is the true religion and an ingrained answer will automatically pop out of his mouth. A preacher might stand and "preach" of the proofs he has, but a Muslim mullah could do the same thing.

I don't know the context of the Union General Sherman's written statement or what prompted him to write it. I have read Sherman is still detested in the South by some because of the havoc and destruction his invasion of the South caused during the Civil War; he laid waste a path 300 miles long and 60 miles wide, but it hastened the end of the Civil War. We in the North for the most part say that was good, while a reverse opinion is held by some who live down there. Prejudice!

Takin' It Easy

Like Johnny Cash sings, "I was sittin' here thinkin' about old times," I often find myself doing just that now that I no longer head out the door each day to work at a job and am free to do whatever interests me. I think I've got some of the same Norwegian blood as the man I will relate in this true story. We were at a 50th wedding anniversary party a while back for a couple who lived close neighbors to Mary's family while she was growing up. One of this couple's daughters had been widowed and then found herself a new man, a Norwegian bachelor farmer. She is of the stout German stock that doesn't like foolishness, when it is time to work you need to get it done, and now! A group of us sat at a table, and she related a story of her new husband who she told does things in a slow, sometimes dreamy manner, and even occasionally works a team of draft horses in the field. On their farm both a small flock of sheep and small herd of cows ran, and the new couple split wintertime chores, she looking after the cows and he the sheep. One morning they went out to do their chores. As she finished her share she went back into the house to work at household jobs, and waited and waited for him. Finally she worried herself into going out to check on him. She found him laying on a haystack. She wondered what in the world he had been doing. "Oh, I thought it was such a nice day, so I lay down to watch the clouds sail by." Her German blood roiled up by this foolishness said, "You gotta be shittin' me!"

At times I feel those same looks from my wife, but some of us are built that way. I often tell Mary that I like to take it easy, but when I nod off for an afternoon nap she is almost as incredulous as her old neighbor. Whatever, I do have several things I am working at, and I find myself further along than I thought on one of them. I have written lots of poems over the past few years, and I plan to self-publish a booklet containing some of them. Both of my sons are good with drawing pencils so I have asked them each to furnish a few line drawings to illustrate the book. One son and his family will be here this weekend to attend a wedding, and I want to give him a draft to look at and be inspired to draw appropriate pictures.

I have been aiming at a publication date sometime next winter, but after taking inventory, I was surprised to find I have more than enough on hand now. So I will be busy for awhile getting it all put together. It will be a chapbook in form. The origin of the term chapbook comes from old English peddlers called chapmen who took their wares - pots, pans, cloth, thread, etc. - on a horsedrawn cart and roamed around selling to folks in the countryside. Some of the items they sold were small, inexpensive tracts or booklets of reading material, thus the word chapbook took on meaning in our present day as a small, inexpensive, self-published book of poems. Now I'm ready to take a nap.

Speaking Truth to Power

Let us now turn to praising those who see world events and would-be leaders for what they really are and then inform us so that we get the proper perspective. John McCain recently spoke at the biker's rally in Sturgis, SD and told the crowd that he would rather speak to 50,000 bikers than to the 200,000 Germans in the crowd that Obama addressed over there. Yes, on the surface that does seem to be an appropriate comment since Germans don't vote in our elections. But last evening on the Countdown with Keith Olbermann Show on MSNBC he and Rachel Maddow interpreted the situation quite clearly: Obama's crowd of 200,000 people came expressly to see and hear him speak, while McCain's crowd stood waiting for a Kid Rock concert to begin which gave him a captive audience.

The most entertaining part of McCain's presentation was when he offered up his wife Cindy to be a contestant in the rally's Buffalo Chip Beauty Contest. You could hear the crowd roar as they hooped it up over that prospect. If John only would have known beforehand he never would have mentioned it. The contest is a semi-nude affair where all the contestants are issued a banana (your imagination can draw that picture). A self-respecting man of national prominence would not have suggested his wife's participation in such a contest if he had prior knowledge of it. Mrs. McCain, standing near her husband, looked embarrassed and acted like she knew the score. Maybe the following story describes what occurred when they were alone again.

Three men were at a bar. Two of the men were discussing the control they had over their wives, while the third remained uninterested. After a short while, the two men turned to the third and asked,"What about you? What kind of control do you have over your wife?" The third man turned to the first two and said, "Well, just the other day I had her on her knees!" The two men were dumbfounded. "Wow, that's incredible! What happened next?" they asked. The third man took a healthy swig of his beer, sighed and grumbled, "Then she started screaming at me to get out from under the bed and fight like a man!"

Snow in August

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

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

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

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

Lots of This 'n' That

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

A Latin Quote

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

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

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

Sad News

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

Their Quest

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

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

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

Plenty of Activities

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

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

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

Call of the Wild

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

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

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

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

Elderly?

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

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

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

More Than One Way to Say It

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

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

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

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

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

Time to Think

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

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

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

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

Glory Days

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

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

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

Tin Lizzie

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

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

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