A Time to Grow

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


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

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

The Water Pump

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




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

For Everything a Season

North Dakota Veterans Cemetery



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

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

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

Harry, the Wizard

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

Lily telling Grandpa ...

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

Rejected

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mayhem & Poems

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

Just Thinking

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

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

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

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

I'm No Luddite

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

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

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

Christmas, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Winter Has Arrived

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

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

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

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

Saying something is something else

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

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

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

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

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

Word Stew

Some days I like to sit and let my mind wander about without concentrating very hard on any one thing. Hard winter has set in around here; it’s nothing we can’t handle, but I wonder about all those southerners who have come up here to work in the oil fields. A TV news item showed some of them trying to winterize camper trailers they brought with them. An RV dealer whose business is just down the road from here said in the same newscast that campers really can’t be expected to be very comfortable in the winter season. I don’t envy any of the oil field workers since I don’t think you can put on enough clothes to work around those metal pipes and machines. I wonder if, on a dare, they’d be gullible enough to stick their tongue on a piece of metal.

I checked out the Farmer’s Almanac to see what kind of winter weather they were predicting. Managing Editor Sandi Duncan says it's going to be an "ice cold sandwich … We feel the middle part of the country's really going to be cold — very, very cold, very, very frigid, with a lot of snow," she said. A hundred years ago the forecast was just the opposite. My hometown paper ran this story: “Roscoe Davenport, one of the old time trappers who has been doing an extensive trapping business down in Sargent County predicts that this section of the country is due for a mild and open winter. According to Mr. Davenport, muskrats, skunks, mink, and other fur bearing animals have made little preparation for winter, which the trapper says, is substantiated proof that the winter will not be severe.” There is probably little difference in the accuracy of either the almanac or the trapper. A quick scan of weather records on the internet turned up no results for 1910, so I don’t know how accurate the trapper was, and the next few months will test the almanac’s guess.

Sarah Palin stays in the news, but it appears as if a conservative backlash is developing. Joe Scarborough, a former Republican House member and host of MSNBC‘s “Morning Joe” , said that his party should “man up” against her, Peggy Noonan, the former speechwriter for Reagan called her a “nincompoop”, Barbara Bush said she should stay in Alaska, etc. Maybe her deal is all about making hay while the sun shines, I.e. raking in money.

Sometimes we run onto little things that we remember for a few days. A week ago we stopped at a travel plaza in Fargo to fill gas and use the restrooms. This little haiku pretty much sums up my experience:

on your mark -
hitting a house fly
etched in the urinal

Writing

Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. Jules Renard
- - - - -

I find it interesting to find new sources of information and/or entertainment. A few days ago a good one came my way. I subscribe to Curtis Dunlap’s blog called Blogging Along Tobacco Road. It is dedicated to publishing the three-line haiku or the five-line tanka styles of poetry. When the e-mail alert came across my screen that a new posting was available I clicked on his site - tobaccoroadpoet.blogspot.com - and watched a video tribute - “For Mike” - he had placed for Mike Farley, a Red Lodge, Montana rancher and haiku poet who had recently passed away. There, Dunlap stood by a river in North Carolina and recited Farley’s haiku:

Jack Daniels
just a splash
at the river’s edge

Of course, he pulled a half-pint of whisky and a shot glass from his pocket and poured himself a “splash.” Check it out. As flippant as this might seem with my description of the scene, it was done very respectfully, and I can only hope I’m celebrated that way some day.

I’ve been writing some of the haiku and tanka forms lately. Here are a few -

blank pages -
writing all those years
without ink in my pen

target practice -
the bull’s eye sighted me
clawing up a tree

a blanket of fog
on the horizon -
an old man telling stories

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

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

Old Times

Why is it that those who get on their high horse most often face in the wrong direction? Alfred Corn
………………………..

On Sunday we attended an interesting talk at Bismarck State College, another in the series of “Conversations at BSC.” The president of the college, Dr. Larry Skogen, and Clay Jenkinson, a public humanities scholar, have been doing this for a couple of years once a month, and a different topic is featured each time. Sunday’s topic - “Putting Otto von Back in Bismarck: The Iron Chancellor and the Great Plains” kept the audience in their seats for two hours (just because it was interesting). I couldn’t keep all the facts in my head at the time, so I did a little research on my own to get it understood.

The present city of Bismarck was once named Edwinton, and the conversation came around to why the name was changed. The Northern Pacific Railroad had started crawling across the map of America, but in 1873 stalled at Edwinton (Bismarck) because it ran out of money. The upper echelon of the company had made too many expensive purchases. Then a wide-spread depression - the Panic of 1873 - struck the country and financing was not available. So there the tracks ended. The NP management needed a strategy to get moving again and here is what interested me. In order to attract German settlers and create revenue the city’s name changed to Bismarck in order to get Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, interested and to encourage German people to come here. Times did start picking up a bit. The Black Hills gold rush helped bring business. In 1882 the Missouri railroad bridge spanned the river and tracks led to the westward settling. That bridge, by the way, was well-built since the pilings and pillars used today are still original construction.

From 1889 to 1893 the president was Benjamin Harrison, and in order to get him interested in helping the railroad to thrive, the NP management outright gave him a farm of over 900 acres just five miles north of the city, an act of graft and corruption that seemed to have worked.

Now when I drive north on Highway 83 and pass by the nightclub in Hay Creek Township I’ll think of the historical significance of that land.
. . . . . . .

As I sit in relative comfort in this home we built ten years ago and benefit from all the labor saving devices in it, I’m always amazed by what people of a hundred years ago went through. I present the following article in the Sheldon Progress to illustrate my point:

P. N. Brown and I. M. Williams of McLeod arrived in Sheldon early Wednesday morning after making an all night trip in order to get here to carry the election returns to Lisbon. Mr. Brown had a rather trying experience in getting here. He started to walk to McLeod, a distance of about two miles and became lost on the prairie. He wandered around through a heavy cold rain for several hours before he finally reached McLeod. He and Mr. Williams then took the Soo train past Anselm and came as far as the crossing, (about two miles west of Sheldon - my note) walking from there into Sheldon and went to Lisbon on the morning train. (Given present day cars and improved roads, it takes less than half an hour to drive from McLeod to Lisbon.)

Self-Educated

The pastor in his funeral eulogy for Dad spoke of him as being a self-taught man. Dad attended school through just the eighth grade, then had to quit to work on the family farm, a story repeated over and over by people born in that generation. And many are the stories of people, who even though enrolled in school, were kept at home to help at times throughout the school year, therefore missing large blocks of instructional time. In order to cope and function independently as they grew to maturity they had to learn information and skills on their own.

When the astronauts were chosen, the first requirement was a college education. This eliminated the man who made space flight possible, Chuck Yeager. His formal education was limited to high school. From that time on, society no longer recognized self-educated people. It takes a college education, don’t-cha-know. From the two college degrees I received I’ve often said that the biggest reward was the piece of paper handed me certifying that I had completed a required course of study, a result of which I was able to work in certain settings. The reality is that I have learned much more through my independent studies.

This country reveres self-taught men such as Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, et al. None of them traveled very far in formal education but somehow possessed the aptitude that let them excel in their interests. Intellectual curiosity drove them to find answers prompting their self-study by reading, experimenting, and searching.

Both Dad and my father-in-law could estimate the tons of hay in a stack, the bushels of grain in a bin, the weight of a steer, acres in a field, study the sky and predict weather, plus a myriad of other useful facts which let them hang on to their farms in good times and in bad. Dad knew of worldly things even though he did not travel much. He read, then read some more. His knowledge base in history was probably larger than my own, even with my college minor in history. I read once of a man who earned a doctoral degree in some insignificant field of study but then could not find professional work. In order to support himself he found work as a common laborer with a landscape company where the manager only shook his head in disbelief at his ineptitude and helplessness. I think he survived with that company but had to go through a period of training on the job.
. . . . . . .
The hundred year old archived newspaper, The Sheldon Progress, made no mention of Veterans’ Day in their November 11, 1910 issue. Of course, WWI had not yet been fought. That issue reported on one interesting news item:

An escaped prisoner created a good deal of excitement at the depot Monday evening and it was only by the most heroic efforts of bystanders that he was finally run down and captured. The prisoner broke loose from his bonds in some way and jumped from the train just as it was pulling out from the depot. He sprang right into the arms of John Mougey who was standing in front of the door, but John failed to get a stranglehold on him and he escaped. The prisoner headed due west, followed by an excited mob, and although he made heroic efforts to escape, it was soon evident that he could not elude his pursuers. They sprang up on every side and soon had their victim surrounded. The poor fellow, seeing his escape cut off from all directions, finally gave up the attempt and was captured by Mike Flatt, who is now a candidate for a Carnegie medal. He was a fine specimen of a Leghorn rooster and at the present price of chickens is worth his weight in gold.

Dad

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 2 Timothy 4:7


This Biblical verse readily comes to mind as I sit at my keyboard today. I am 68 years old and have had a father up until a few days ago; now his absence is deeply felt. Somewhere I read that when a person dies it is as a library with all its knowledge having burned down. In Dad’s case the library was large. I learned much from him but now no longer can go to him to search his historical, biographical, political, economic, or social knowledge. His mind operated well except for the final two weeks. He read two daily papers - The MInneapolis Tribune and The Fargo Forum - and two county papers - Enderlin and Lisbon - plus assorted magazines. He read many books during his lifetime. He told me as a youth that whenever he could gather a few cents together he would order a book through the mail. A history book club furnished him many hours of reading, and he loved western stories like those written by Zane Grey. Before electricity came to our farm he read each night sitting with his white forehead and weathered face by light of a gas lantern while I sprawled on the floor within the lit circle to draw my pictures or read my own material.

The picture of Dad I placed on the front cover of my last book of poems also hangs on my office wall along with a photo of his dad and his dad. Beyond those men we have little or no knowledge. I can only hope he is in a place now where he can visit with them and acquaint himself with the unknown fathers.

… I have kept the faith. He never wore his religious beliefs on his sleeve, but I know he held them. He spoke to me about his doubts of whether or not he’d ever been baptized. He’d never seen record of it, and it must have bothered him enough to keep bringing it up. A couple of years ago while he was hospitalized and when a pastor from his church dropped in, I suggested baptism. Both Dad and the pastor were willing. So it was.

Saddened

Because of the death of my father early Monday morning I will not write this week.

Autumn

It is quite a fall season with the weather still so mild and comfortable and busy lives in between sleeping and waking. On Monday the wife and I drove over to Lisbon again to see my parents in the home. Dad has suffered some strokes that have caused the loss of coherent speech and the use of one side of his body. He wants to talk but gets frustrated with his illness. Hospice now comes in to see him often and brings their reassurance and comforting. I am 68 years old and have been fortunate to have him all that time. It has been very appreciated that a few good friends and relatives have visited the folks.

An event scheduled on the other end of the emotional index takes place this next Saturday when our older son marries his lady. I still remember clearly the day he was born and how I laid down on the car’s foot feed to back out of a slippery, snowy driveway. That was 34 years ago. The younger son married some years ago and already has two little kids to show for it. Just like my parents did, Mary and I entered the world of grandparents and have relished it.

Among other things I am a member of the Tanka Society of America, a poet group that specializes in writing the short verse form of tanka with a characteristic five line format. The editors of their journal Ribbons have seen fit to publish some of my work and the following will be submitted to them for consideration:

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

It is a simple form, usually using a simple statement to point out a stronger element and uses few capitals or marks of punctuation. For its surface simplicity much can be said with it. It expresses my feelings at the present time.

Looking for the Truth

There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth. - Chinese Proverb


For those who know me best it is probably well understood that I am a “Blue Dog Democrat,” which is to say a conservative one. All sorts of descriptions float around, maybe saying I’m a bit left of center fits best. Whatever, when I’m reading or listening to media I go for quiet, well-reasoned dialogues where issues are intelligently discussed in a friendly setting. I appreciate the MSNBC program “Morning Joe” because it features just such discussions. Joe Scarborough is a Republican and one of his regular appearing sidekicks is Pat Buchanan, avowedly conservative. But other guests balance the discussions and the level of repartee is usually pleasant.

I recently heard Jon Meacham, editor of the Newsweek magazine, say on "Morning Joe" that we presently have an entire class of media people who depend on conflict for their livelihood, not conflict resolution. If they make their living from throwing poisoned darts will they ever go away? I don‘t think so. Names of the culprits come easy, but I don’t want to credit their existence by naming them.

While on my recent trip to the northeast , I missed the Eric Sevareid Symposium held in Bismarck, although I kept up with it as best as I could on the internet. Two of Sevareid’s proteges, Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer, attended as featured speakers. A quote I picked up from Schieffer stood out loud and clear; he talked of people’s “journalism of validation. They will listen only to those who agree with their point of view.”

It’s only occasionally that people take hard-hitting criticism good-naturedly. Zgigniew Brzesinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, appeared on Morning Joe. Scarborough thought he could discuss world events on a par with him when he said something about the Israel-Palestine crisis. Brzesinski shot back, “You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it’s almost embarrassing to listen to you.” Wearing a sheepish grin, Joe acted as if he had no hard feelings about being put in his place and has had Brzesinski back for commentary since that time. That’s the kind of behavior I enjoy seeing.

This blog appears each Wednesday morning (usually).