End of Another July

 Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.  Will Rogers

It's been awhile since I dusted off some of my old poems.  I found this one that I'd almost forgotten I'd written - 

I just heard Tom T. Hall sing

"Back when gas was thirty cents

a gallon."  For a dollar

I could buy seven glasses

of beer, then dream nightmares

of dancing with, fat, boozy,

foul-mouthed women.  Good neighbor

below us just mowed leafy

spurge in his horse pasture,

and I bought a rich armload

of books at my favorite

thrift store where a college prof

keeps them lined up on their shelves.

Epic fires eat at Texas

and I still write of blizzards

stalling wagons trains back home.

Then there is this one, probably the most thoughtful one I've ever written -

We were drinking beer in Herb's

when Walter said, "Your dad should

have kicked your ass more often

just as far as I'm concerned."

Walt was a World War II vet,

a gunner in a bomber

who told of watching bullets

bounce off the armored belly

of German jets he shot at.

He flew thirty-some missions.

How could I argue with him?

Just maybe he knew something.

Then I looked beside Walter

to the next man.  He'd once said

a man could have walked ashore

on floating soldiers' bodies

killed while attempting to land

on gory foreign beaches.

He rarely spoke, yet his eyes

looked at me saying, "He's right."

The next in line at the bar,

a D-Day paratrooper,

spoke cheerfully, masking facts

of his war - hearing screams

of Germans after he threw

explosives in their concrete

bunker.  His box of medals

sat unsung, collecting dust.

In spite of his easy laugh

his eyes pierced this guy's know-it-

all attitude to say,"You

have a lot to learn yet, boy!"

Though my spirit had weakened

from this beating I'd taken,

I could still stand at the bar.

My eyes settled on the vet

who hosted a metal plate

in his head for which he'd paid

a piece of his skull and brain.

The crew of his tank had stopped

to cook coffee.  A sniper

traded his bullet for the flesh

of this man, neutralizing

forever his reasoning.

Those unfocused eyes watched

me through a clouded beer glass -

was I friend or enemy?

the one who had wounded him?

I had entered this man's world

thinking I was an equal,

but this cadre proved harsh worlds

apart from mine existed.

That ragged line extended

further down the long counter,

and men's faces became blurred.

Each had his private story

and bore sore wounds in body

and mind.  Retreat from their hell

was the better course for me.

Years have passed and none remain

to share their stories and shame

me into humility.

It is this I remember.

Pretty Flowers

I'm spending most of my time researching topics that interest me, all at the expense of a shaggy lawn, broken garage door opener, and a host of miscellaneous other jobs I should take care of. But none of those are much fun. I got steered into some website information Monday night by a friend with common interests and is a veteran researcher. I told him if he ever runs into information regarding horse buyers in this country during World War One that I'd appreciate any tips. He went right to work when he got home and found sources without looking very hard. The website is chroniclingamerica.loc.gov and draws from historic newspapers. I looked at a few Bismarck Tribunes and found a number of interesting tidbits, ie one article headlined West Now Being Drained of Horses where one paragraph stated, “Probably 6,000 to 7,500 horses are being shipped out of Montana and northern Wyoming monthly, all destined for war service.”

* * *

Quite a stir with “Rolling Stone” magazine when they pictured the young Boston bomb maker on its front cover. When I was last in Barnes and Noble I picked up an issue, but not to read about that. No, I wanted to read an article featuring Willie Nelson. You gotta love that guy. He must have completely disarmed the interviewer with this joke: A man went to the doctor for a checkup. Says the doc, “You're going to have to quit masturbating.” “Why?” says the patient. “So I can exam you.”

* * *

That same morning we went to Denny's for breakfast where a young native American gal took our order. The restaurant was very busy, and I remarked in my sometimes heavy Norwegian pronunciation of things, “You look bissy.” She looked confused, looked around and said, “I'm not Bessy, I'm Alva.” After explaining my sloppy pronunciation, we all had a good laugh over it.

* * *

Sometimes I think news people must feel trapped in a whirlpool from which there is no escape. I'm talking about the birth of a new royal baby in England. Now that is very nice, but how much of it do we need in this country. Watching Mika on Morning Joe, I'm sure she feels that way. She as much as said so, but then reverted into some more baby news.

* * *

I've been reading good books lately.  Richard S. Wheeler from Montana writes of the West,and the last of his I read was Bat Masterson.  Wheeler was a newsman in his earlier life, and often uses a newsman as a character in his stories.  He really is a wordsmith.  Now I picked up his Richest Hill on Earth, a story about mining in Butte, Montana, and sure enough, a newsman gets right in the middle of things.

Lookin' Good

What with such a late spring , the flowers in Mary's garden got off to a slow start, but now she thinks they have reached their peak of beauty, and that's not bad.  What was it - three months ago that we had such a deep snowfall.  Most people had put their snowblowers away and had their lawnmowers ready to go.  It's a good thing I went around the yard yesterday morning with my camera because I came upon a running water hose she had forgotten about.  I suppose the extra water bill will just come out of my allowance.

*     *     *
 Speaking of the wife, I drug her kicking and screaming to The Lone Ranger on Sunday.  It took a couple weeks of pleading, but finally she relented.  Of course, what were the first words she spoke as we walked to our car after the movie, "I really liked it!"  There are some good laughs in the story.  Tonto always made sure to feed the dead crow he wore on his head for good luck.  A little fantasy is good for anyone.
*     *     *
An article in this week's Time magazine finally educated me as to why there is a big environmental pushback trying to prevent the Keystone Pipeline from being built - that stuff is really gunky and dirty. 
*     *     *

What's with the television station in California that reported on the pilot's names of the Korean airplane that came in for a hard landing.  There must have been a bunch of slugs running around in that studio and in front of that camera to say these names out loud: Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee F__ , and Bang Ding Ow. I choose not to fill in the blanks on the one name, but it's easy to figure out.  If that's not outrageous enough, here is another to add to it.  A newspaper in Chicago wrote the headline "Fright 214."  They got in trouble because it was perceived as a slur to Asiatic pronunciation of an English word.  

*     *     *

The Zimmerman case in Florida brings out more racial anger.  Of course, mobbery erupted in protest.  And our role model,  the Senate argues.  The House of Reps argues.  No one gets anything done.  I spent a little time the other day looking at a magazine in Barnes and Noble - American Cowboy, August/September - and read an essay written by President Jimmy Carter in honor of John Wayne.  Of course, with Carter being a liberal Democrat and John Wayne being a conservative Republican they were bound to disagree.  But Carter liked the man immensely.  Here is a quote from that article: What I learned from him as we engaged during my tenure as president was that patriotism, policy debates, even major disagreements about the nation's direction need not be hostile or personal or contentious, and that no matter how much we disagreed, we had more in common than our differences might suggest.   If only we could have people like that around today.  The democrat Tip O'Neill and the republican Ronald Reagan fought during the day but were great friends at night.  Something seems to get in the way of that occurring today.

*    *     *

Ole and Lars were working for the city public works department in Fargo.  Ole would dig a hole and Lars would follow behind and fill the hole in. They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one digging a hole, the other filling it in again.  An onlooker was amazed at their hard work, but couldn't understand what they were doing. So he asked Ole, "I'm impressed by the effort you two are putting in to your work, but I don't get it -- why do you dig a hole, only to have your partner follow behind and fill it up again?  Ole, the hole digger, wiped his brow and sighed, 'Vell, I suppose it probably looks odd because ve're normally a three-person team. But today Sven, who plants da trees called in sick.'"

Whatever comes to mind...

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” - C. S. Lewis

What better way to start a blog than to see a picture of a pretty, young lady hard at work with an important task.  This, by the way, is my little granddaughter so seriously intent on her work.

I'm still processing in my mind the convention I just attended.  People we meet there might just be the most important reason for going.  At one evening banquet I sat with a couple from California whom I found to be very interesting.  As the meal wore on I mentioned that I was interested in the history of horse procurement in the Midwest by buyers who looked to supply military needs in Europe during the first world war.  On the battlefields, horses and mules suffered the same fates as infantrymen, i.e. wounding, gassing, injury, and killing.  Even though my grandfather never talked much of his experiences in the Meuse-Argonne, he did mention to one of my cousins how he hated to hear the screams of the wounded horses in the night.  These were horses that couldn't be put out of their misery with a simple gun to the head.  They were horses trapped in "no-man's land" between the two opposing forces where no man dared to tread.  Their fate was to suffer until finally succumbing to their wounds. 

The man listened attentively, and then said it was something he too was interested in.  His father had purchased these same horses for the remount depot in Montana.  It was a story he'd always intended telling, but now at 88 years of age with only 10% vision remaining due to macular degeneration, he no longer could.

He wants me to tell it and gave me sources of information to find the nuts and bolts of that period of history.  Then, on Sunday, I received a telephone call from him with more words of encouragement.  Now to start gathering facts and figures.  

My interest developed when I'd read about a famous bucking horse from this region named Tipperary.  He was so wild that buyers wouldn't take him, and men quick to take advantage, started entering him in rodeos. A book named Tipperary had earlier been given to me by the stepmother of the past Governor Schafer, Sheila Schafer. 

I hope I have time remaining to finish everything!

Some words on the WWA convention

 For people who watch the History Channel's Pawn Stars show, they will recognize the man with the flat Amish style hat, Mark Hall-Patton.  This picture was taken in the Barnes and Noble store in Henderson, NV where WWA book-signing event.  I didn't sell, but I bought way too many. And then as I lugged the heavy bag into the hotel, I wondered if I would be able to pack everything and get it home.  Hall-Patton spoke to the group twice, here, and the next day at a breakout session at the convention.  He says he will not tell anyone what an item is worth and usually doesn't know.  What he does is authenticate it as real or call it fake.  As for the show, he said it is produced.  That is, an interesting subject is lined up and then they call him to come in, something which takes a half-hour to travel from one of the three museums he manages.  People were interested in the personalities on the show, mostly the old man and Chumlee.  Is the old man as grumpy as he appears?  As a matter of fact he is, but he suffers from migraine headaches and has a reason for it.  Why does Chumlee stick around with all the guff he takes?  Don't worry about Chumlee, he's laughing all the way to the bank.  We passed the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop one day in the bus when it was 111 degrees.  I guess some people like to suffer, because a long line stood outside the shop waiting to be admitted.

The mystique of the American mob drew a busload of WWA convention-goers to the National Museum of Organized Crime & Law Enforcement, better known as The Mob Museum, on Thursday, June 27. The city of Las Vegas deems it important, because, after all, its website proclaims, “The Vegas of today wouldn't exist without the mob of yesterday.” Housed in the city's old federal courthouse and post office, the museum's three floors have been re-purposed to hold memorabilia, photos, films, documents, and interactive displays featuring well-known crime figures and some dogged lawmen who pursued them. That the mob continues to draw interest among the public can be illustrated by the accolades given to actor James Gandolfini after his recent death. The character he played was a murderous mobster.

Two .45 Thompson sub-machine guns were used to slaughter five members of Chicago's North Side Gang on February 14, 1929, thus the eponymous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The very brick wall the victims faced when shot in the back has been dismantled brick by brick, moved to Las Vegas, and reconstructed. The profusion of bullet holes in those bricks gives testament to the grim facts of the scene. A glass case displayed one of the guns used. If eyes had not seen, an observer would never have believed that a petite, young lady could pick up a Thompson and begin firing away at a human target in the museum, but assuredly, it did happen that day. It must be disclosed, though, that the gun, however lifelike, was an electronic simulator.

These conventions are very interesting for me.  A person doesn't even know who he doesn't know.  At the Saturday night banquet I sat at a table with some folks, one of whom's name was Andrew Fenady.  It meant nothing until he told me he was a movie producer, and among other movies had produced John Wayne's "Chisum."  He told some great stories about the business and about John Wayne.  He writes a lot of books, too, and gave me one that evening.  I'm halfway through already.  It's a good one.

Another fellow I visited with, William McGee, gave me a very good lead on finding research material.  I told him I was very interested in writing a story centering on the horses during World War I that European buyers came here looking to buy.  European countries couldn't keep the armies supplied because they were being killed off on the battlefields.  He said it was a story he always wanted to tell, but now at the age of 88 and with only 10% vision remaining, he can't do it.  He was knowledgeable of the topic; his father worked as an agent buying those horses. 

 

Next year we head to Sacramento, CA for the convention, and I plan on taking Mary with.  I know she will enjoy it.

 

More from Vegas

Full day yesterday, another coming up. Posted are pictures from the auction last night.

Wednesday PM

Today was a big day of panel discussions. This morning the topic owas The Victorian West: Virtue and Vice. The panelists got right down to the nitty gritty in talking about gambling, prostitution, venereal disease, etc. A great story dealt with a gambler who, when he died, had a baptist, Presbyterian, Jew, and a catholic speak, he wanted to cover the odds.

This afternoon Getting It Right: Writing About Cowboys had several old grizzled old time cowboys who laughed at how many writers have portrayed them and their activities.


Second this afternoon - Black Cowboys in the West dealt with how large Ola presence blacks were in the West. The picture shows the members of this one.

Lastly the discussion centered around the Old Spanish Trail, the least interesting to me.


The second fellow on this picture is known as Cowboy Mike. He possesses the heartiest laugh I've ever heard. I shouldn't have talked to my editor, he gave me two more books to review for Roundup magazine. Now my pile is seven books high. Oh we'll, I guess I asked for it. More tomorrow.

Location:Las Vegas Blvd S,Winchester,United States

Wednesday @ WWA

here is the poster that says it all. More to come.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Las Vegas

In Las Vegas

I made it to the WWA convention, but I'm having trouble figuring out this mini iPad.  I'll try again tomorrow.

4-4-0 and more

Finding information and collecting my thoughts in preparation to start the next writing project, I started thinking about the old railroad engines that whistled, steamed, and smoked through my little hometown.  There were many configurations of wheels on the engines, and this one shows a 4-4-0 arrangement - four wheels in front, four driver wheels, and no trailer wheels, a very typical engine in the late 1800's, I have a commemorative collector plate hanging on my office wall of  Locomotive No. 1, The William Crooks  which says on the reverse side, "The first locomotive to operate in Minnesota."  Garage sales result in some great finds, this included.  On the accompanying Certificate of Authenticity, this statement appears: Completed in 1862 for the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, this locomotive made its first run between St. Paul and St. Anthony, now Minneapolis.  The Crooks was carried for many years as Locomotive No. 1 on the roster of the Great Northern Railway, a BNSF predecessor.   Comparing this picture to the one on my plate, I can find no difference.  Vintage photos show similar engines used in North Dakota during this period.

Railroads weigh heavily in any thinking about old towns in pioneer days. Towns either existed because a rail line went through or withered and died because the railroad bypassed them. Picture this humorous scene in my hometown as reported in the newspaper: December, 1866 – “Tuesday afternoon the snowplow came through, ran into a little snowbank close to the depot, and before the smiling agent could wink, he was nearly buried with the 'beautiful.'” In February, 1885 we learn that “the freight business of the Fargo and Southwestern is rapidly on the increase. Twenty cars of freight passed west yesterday.” This fellow had quite the ride: “A man who rode in a sealed box car loaded with salmon from Portland, Oregon was heard crying for water in the Northern Pacific yards at Fargo, Dak and was promptly arrested.” Trains spooked horses: “Liveryman Hickey met with quite a painful accident on Sunday afternoon. He was leading a colt which became frightened at the whistle of a locomotive of one of the gravel trains and plunging forward, hit Mr. Hickey with his shoulder, breaking a couple of ribs.” (Hickey, I've learned, was an experienced horseman.) It took lots of manpower to build and maintain a railroad: “A gang of the swarthy sons of Italy have been assisting the regular section crew putting in new ties for the past two weeks.”

Certain events in history have enough importance to find preservation in books such as the killing winter of 1886-87, and when we read of events leading up to it one wishes he could holler loudly, “Stop, can't you see what's going to happen!” This appeared in the May, 1885 issue of The Sheldon Progress: “Thousands of head of cattle have been bought in Northwestern Iowa in the last few weeks to be taken to the large ranches in Dakota and Montana for fattening purposes.” This is the stuff of science fiction, being sent back in time to alter history. Teddy Roosevelt's investment disappeared in this winter of severe blizzards and cracking cold. He thought it would be easy money to buy cattle, fatten them on prairie grass, and ship them out for a large profit. Hundreds of thousands of cattle died.

My favorite line from our old newspaper states this to confirm in my mind that Sheldon once stood on the edge of the frontier: “Several prairie schooners passed through town yesterday bound for the west.”

About that same time this appeared: “Saturday was a lively day in Sheldon. Thirty or forty teams could be counted on Front Street at almost any hour of the day.” I aim to tell some of these stories.

***
Ole and Sven were on a train taking a trip to Nort Dakoda.  A beautiful woman in front was saying she heard the Dakoda Indians were the world's best lovers.  She asked Ole what his name was, and he says "Ole Redfeather."

***

Change

This blogsite is undergoing a bit of freshening up. Change is inevitable. It's been said the only constant in this world is change. There are still some things to do in remodeling, but this is a first step. I need more help from Brandon before I call it done. I thought about establishing a website, something which can be a little different, but I decided to stay with this blogger site. To be added will be some links, plus another category or two.

But this blog is not going to be about change, just the opposite: some people don't want change in their lives. Some of the great books, as far as I'm concerned, are about old codgers who refuse modern ways. The book Monte Walsh tells the story of a cowboy who wanted to keep on doing things the way he always did. Jack Schaefer, the author, has a storekeeper asking Monte why he threw a man out a closed window for repeatedly asking a certain question. “What question?” the storekeeper wondered. “Why, when was I going to turn my horse in on a goddamned autymobile.” Schaefer is the one who also wrote Shane.

Elmer Kelton wrote a good many highly respected western novels. He writes in one, The Good Old Boys, that Hewey Calloway “... lives in an impossible dream, trying to remain changeless in a world where the only constant is change.” I regret not having had the chance to meet Kelton. He regularly attended the Western Writers conventions and had many admirers among the other writers. Unfortunately, I joined up too late since he passed away several years ago.

Luddites were a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment. Owners of the factories became victimized by Luddites who wanted the old ways left intact. Once in awhile the term luddite still gets resurrected and used in dialogue of today.

On the wall in front of my desk, at eye level, hangs an 11x14 picture of a Buffalo Pitts steam engine entering a shallow ford on the Sheyenne River. Hitched to it is a threshing machine. A loaded bundle wagon stands behind, and on either side, in water, are a horse and buggy and a team pulling a water wagon. I recently acquired it from Tom Spiekermeier of Sheldon. The picture appeared in 1981 Sheldon Community History with the caption “The Wall Bros. Threshing Crew crossing the 'Froemke' Sheyenne River crossing south of Anselm, ND. This is just west of where Argil Froemke now lives.”

In searching archival newspapers I ran onto a few notations pertaining to this very outfit in 1901: July 19 - “Fred Wall and brother Alfred have bought a fine new threshing outfit and will make the straw fly this fall.” August 2 – Harvest hands are getting $2.00 a day and that is about right.” August 9 – The whistle of the steam engine is heard in the early morn – threshing is under way.” and August 30 – Last Friday was a damp day and made threshing a slow process, yet Fred Wall seems to have gotten there with both feet. He threshed on that day 2121 bushels wheat, 90 bushels of oats, and 32 bushels of barley. The total time in the field was 11 hours and five moves were made during the day. The separator was a 40-60 Nichols and Shepard, Red River Special and a Pitts 22 H.P. engine.” Whether or not the picture was taken in 1901 can't be determined from the information I have, but it is safe to assume at the least it was taken in the early 1900's.

Earlier research on High-Low Water Trails between Forts Abercrombie and Ransom leads me to believe this would have been one of the fords used at the time of the bullwhacker and mule skinner freighting days between the two forts.  

The Medicine Horn, aka Powder Horn

 

In three weeks I'm heading to the Western Writers of America convention in Las Vegas.  There are so many good writers that show up at these things that no way can a man have read all of their works.  One man who is receiving a special award, Jory Sherman, who will take home the coveted Owen Wister Award.  I had never read his work, so off to the library I went and have just finished reading The Medicine Horn.  I was not surprised to discover that he is a very good writer, and, over the course of a long writing career, has written a good many books.  For The Medicine Horn the WWA awarded him a Golden Spur Award, so it was one I wanted to read for sure.  In it a story of early settlers moving west unfolds.  A man raises his son by himself because the wife runs off, and when a fire destroys everything they had worked for in Kentucky, they took off to St. Louis to follow the dreams and stories of beaver trapping in the mountains.  The author was a genius in leaving the ending to be followed up by more books, something which he did do.  What is the significance of the powder horn?  It was given to the son as a gift by a mountain man who had planted the seed of heading westward.  If a person only had the time to read all of the good books!
*     *     *
Speaking of the convention, I just received my assignments to cover and write articles for the upcoming issue of "Roundup" magazine.  One of the featured events is a tour to the Mob Museum, officially known as the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement.  I'm to interview several of the tour participants and find out what kind of ideas they formed after visiting the facility.  Wife Mary says now we'll find out what kind of a writer you are.   Another assignment is to report on the "Editors and Agents" panel and focus on trends, and what types of writing they are looking for.  And people think these conventions are all just fun and games.  Other panels for which other writers have been assigned to cover are The Victorian West, - Writing About Cowboys, -  Black Cowboys in the West, -  Old Spanish Trails, - Legal Issues and Rights, -  Researching and Writing About the Mormon West,  - WWA Traditions and Memories, -  Songwriting the West: Regional Influences, - Spur Award Winners and Finalists,  - Writing Western Songs, - Authenticating History, - and Marketing.  The days do get filled with informational meetings.  Of course, in the evening, the guitars come out and the whiskey flows.  I still drink O'Douls.  (By the way, the WWA sponsors a nice website, and many of the "Roundup" articles can be found there.)
*     *     *
And I worried a couple of weeks ago about the fields blowing away in a dry wind.  Not gonna happen this year.  We've been getting so much rain, accompanied by cool temps, that farmers aren't getting their field work finished.
*     *     *

One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small boy into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, "Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?" The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. "I can't dear," she said. "I have to sleep in Daddy's room." A long silence was broken at last by a shaken little voice saying, "The big sissy."

Some more?  OK - Where did the meteorologist stop for a drink after a long day in the office?  The nearest ISOBAR.  -  What do you call two straight days of rain in Seattle?  A weekend.

Lotza Green and Blossoms

Wherever one looks, scenes of new foliage treat the eye to multi-colored, multi-textured, and multi-scented goodness.  It's a great time to be alive in North Dakota.

After attending a high school graduation in the southwestern part of the state last weekend we had decided that we'd stay home this past weekend.  But the draw of the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Medora proved too great, and there we went.  I have walked on stage a couple of times in the past but haven't done so in the last couple of years.  I blame my absence on my wife who claims she gets too nervous.  Bill Lowman organizes the two-day affair and always wonders why I'm not participating.  On the way out of the auditorium Saturday I waved to him and said I'd bring my guitar along next year; he thought that was an excellent idea.  I think Mary is ready for me to work something up because she was telling me her plans of how and what I should perform. 

In case anyone still wonders about the solution to the Horse Trading problem of last week, here it is along with the problem:  Frank sells Sue a horse for $60.  Then he decides he wants it back, but Sue makes him pay $70 for it.  Then Sue changes her mind and buys it back from Frank, but for $80.  Finally, Frank buys it back from Sue for $90.  At this point, who comes out ahead?

Follow the money; H means that person has the horse.

	Frank	Sue
	+60	-60 H
	-70 H	+70
	+80	-80 H
	-90 H	+90
Totals:	-20 H	+20

So Sue comes out $20 ahead. Frank has his horse back, but he paid $20 to get it.
(from Ohiorc.org - Stella's Problems)

Memorial Day brings lots of activity past our place here just one block off Highway 1806.  The highway leads to the Veterans Cemetery south of us.  The largest crowd ever attended the ceremony out there, and it must have also been the largest number of Freedom River motorcycles, too.  They rumbled on past for a long time.  The sound from those Harleys carries loud and clear.

So it is...

On Sunday our immediate family drove in strong wind and rain to Bowman to attend Harrison Homelvig's graduation from high school.  When the celebrating ended, Brandon and Lindsey took off to spend the night in Spearfish and then tour, a first for her, the Black Hills area.  Clint, Robyn, and kids took off for Medora, as did we.  Mary and I spent the night at a small, new motel in Medora, The Amble Inn.  The owners also run the next door Western Edge bookstore and we have become well-acquainted with Doug and Mary.  When we checked in, we were given the key to room # 4.  Upon entering the room I looked around for a place to hang our coats and spotted the above pictured coat rack.  I looked at it, thinking it looked nice, then I looked again doing a double take thinking that looks like my carving.  It was!  I think the owners planned it that way, that is giving us that room.  Wife Mary made fun of me and the way I did the double-take. The Amble Inn soon will include a bed and breakfast operation we were told.  I will definitely stay and eat there;  they are very gracious hosts.  Doug and I are cohorts in that we are interested in the same regional history and both write about the frontier days. 

-     -     -     -     -     -
It will be very interesting how the two US Senators from Oklahoma will react when it comes to federal disaster relief for the huge tornado damage bill that will come to their state.  Both Inhofe and Coburn have been vocal opponents of lending relief.  The most recent opposition came to recent Hurricane Sandy damage.  Coburn really stuck his foot in his mouth when he objected to "$12.9 billion for future disaster mitigation activities..."  Anyone want to speculate on a two-faced politician?

-     -     -     -     -     -
The new book is proving fun and interesting.  Another activity taking place in livery stables would have been horse-trading, and I've found some good sources to flesh this out.  One of them had to do with something I found in a Sheldon history book.  It had to do with the name of Fowler, a man who owned the stable at one time.  The narrative stated he was like David Harum, but a bigger operator.  Now I wondered who was David Harum?  After googling the name, I found out it was the name of a million best seller book in 1899.  Harum was a country doctor who also loved to trade horses.  Harum's version of the Golden Rule:Do unto the other fellow the way he'd like to do unto you, and do it first." It seems during this time that the dubious practice associated with horse trading was morally justified by the expectation that similar practices would be employed by his adversary.  I've begun reading the book now.  Some other sources I've found told of crooked practices employed by traders to fool their intended buyers.

A good trick fooled one young man just starting out in the horse business.  He bought a very gentle, good looking horse thinking he could not go wrong and should be able to use the horse himself or resell him at a profit.  He got the horse home in good shape, but then things started going bad.  From then until the next morning that horse came unglued and kicked and broke most of the boards in the gates and fence.  The next morning he consulted with an old time horseman as to what could be wrong.  He said he'd bet that if you'd look around the ground in the corral you'd find some wadded up cotton balls.  He added that the trick was to soak them in formaldehyde and stuff them in the horse's nostrils.  Result: one quiet, gentle horse (for only a little while).

A horse trading math problem showed up on Ohiorc.org in Stella's Problems.  "Frank sells Sue a horse for $60.  Then he decides he wants it back, but Sue makes him pay $70 for it.  Then Sue changes her mind and buys it back from Frank, but for $80 (Frank is no dummy).  Finally, Frank buys it back from Sue for - you guessed it - $90 (Sue is no dummy, either).  At this point, who comes out ahead?"  The answer comes next week.  Good-bye.

Big Machines

Trees finally started leafing here along the Missouri. (The picture was taken last fall.)  What was it, three weeks ago we had one heck of a snowfall. Now I've got to get the lawnmowers serviced. We may or may not need them, it's dry. The snow melt didn't do much. As we drove along I-94 on Saturday, I couldn't help but notice how large the fields have gotten. Of course, that happened so as to accommodate the large machines that cover the ground quicker so more land can be farmed so that larger machines can be bought...  Endless cycle.

If timely rains don't sprout the seeds to make them grow and hold the soil, we will be in for some terrible dirt storms this summer. Strip farming and shelterbelts? Nah, they've been forgotten. Even yesterday afternoon the winds were raising dust clouds right in the city, and I could see on the horizon clouds lifted high in the air.

I just finished a very good book of historical fiction: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara. In it he recounts the Battle of Gettysburg. An interesting story about him deals with his early death after having written the book. It so happened that his son helped him research the topic, and after his father, started writing books of historical fiction as well. The book I'm working on now will be historical fiction. A definition I found tells that this type synthesizes fact with fiction dealing with another time. Authors couldn't know what words were spoken by their characters in conversation, but they can place them in authentic situations based on research.

My story will deal with a man who owned the livery stable in my hometown who had the past experience of being a teamster with Major Marcus Reno. The man had a daughter who married a man in Ransom County, so I contacted relatives in Sheldon to see if they had information and/or photographs. She referred me to the only surviving granddaughter who in turn referred me to a family historian living in St. Paul.

We visited them last Saturday and Tom furnished me with many photographs. When the stable owner bought the place the previous owners then  purchased the Buffalo Pitts agency to sell harvesting equipment. Tom gave me an 11” by 14” picture of this scene: a Buffalo Pitts steam engine pulling a threshing machine across a low water point on the Sheyenne River. Also in the scene are a water wagon, a buggy, and a rack filled with bundles. Information on the back says, “The Wall Bros. threshing crew the 'Froemke” crossing Sheyenne River crossing south of Anselm, ND. This is just west of where Argil Froemke now lives.” It makes me wonder if that wasn't the very same “low water” crossing that freighters hauling supplies from Fort Abercrombie to Fort Ransom used when the river ran low.

Another large picture of a group of men gathered in front of a cook car with two ladies in the background says, “Cooks for this hungry threshing crew: Ella Wall (Mrs. Chas. Wendler) and Gertie Bjugstad Evanson.” When you look at it you can't help counting the number of men in it – 22 of them that these two ladies cooked for. The main point is to think how labor intensive harvest was. Going back to the earlier idea in this post, now a couple of men can do more.

Spring, at last!

An incident in the news occurring at the NDSU sheep barn brought back a memory. Two dogs on the loose got into the sheep barn at the college, killing or injuring a number of them in the flock. I was taken back to a time when we'd just returned from a Saturday night outing in town and found several dead in our flock. The immediate suspect was our black Labrador dog named Blackie. Dad opened his mouth and found wool in his teeth. I remember being shunted into the house, after which I heard the loud report of a shotgun. Dad stood for no animal on the place such as this, and the dog became an immediate memory.

Spring came on with a vengeance around here, from winter straight into nice balmy temps. That recent 18 inches of snow disappeared quickly, from snowblowers to lawnmowers. We had a lawn service power rake our yard, and the man said, “It's such a short spring.” He has about 60 yards to do, and ours was only the tenth. Some of these guys really like to work; he works full-time on the evening shift at UPS, and probably earns a living wage there. Workaholics.

Tomorrow night, Thursday, I'm scheduled to make another presentation on the William Wade book. It will be the last one. I'm on to new things and am having a ball researching and writing. Books take so darn long to do, so it will probably be a year before it's ready. In digging through the old newspapers I always find interesting items. In 1886 the publisher wrote: For fast plowing and good work, Thomas McCully “takes the cake.” In fifteen days, with a gang plow, he plowed seventy-five acres, and did it well, too, going three miles to and three miles from work. This is an average of five acres per day, which is indeed good work, considering the present unfavorable condition of the ground for plowing. Who can beat it?

Another good one follows: City Marshal Sanborn has given some of our hilariously inclined farmer citizens a little wholesome advice lately, in consequence of which they crawled into their wagons and made tracks for home.

And lastly, it's plain to see some didn't like anyone to have fun on Sunday: Some of our young gents, not having the fear of their creator before their eyes, indulged in a match game of baseball last Sunday. Don't do so any more, boys.

Scavenging in Mandan

 

Definition: Scavenger - A person who searches through and collects items from discarded material.

A yearly dance takes place each year in Mandan called something like Trash Pick-up Day. The price of a ticket sells cheap. All you have to do is set unwanted items on the boulevard (those that normally don't get picked up on regular garbage pickup). Then what happens is that you - on the night before – look out your picture window and see empty pickups driving slowly along the streets. They seem to be searching for something. This is proven when they stop and out jumps someone who scans your pile, inspects a treasure, and throws it in his pickup. There is a variation or two. On the night before our scheduled, the door bell rings and there stands a young lady with a self-conscious grin on her face. “This might sound like a dumb question, but I was wondering if you'd mind my taking that white set of shelves out there.” “White set of shelves? Mary, did you throw away any white shelves?” “Well, no, but you can take anything out there.” So the three of us walk to the front of the house, and there is a set of white shelves, but that's not all. Someone also graced our junk pile with a large treadmill. Plus a few other things. The next morning I'm still shaking my head as I walk out, but to my surprise the treadmill is gone. Someone picked it as a treasure. All before the trash truck made its rounds. I can't wait for next year.

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I gained another occupation. Last Friday I volunteered to help in an archaeology lab at the state historical society. One nice piece came to light in the bag of screenings I was given: a rim shard, ie, piece of a broken pottery piece. It was kind of nice, about 3 inches square with some nice decorative work on the edge. How old? Between 300 to 500 years old.

The best part about Friday was when I arrived, they asked if I wanted to join a tour going through the new addition to the Heritage Center. Sure, I did. What a building it will be when finished!

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The archive library keeps yielding interesting tidbits for me. Here is one from Sheldon's old newspapers, 1909: A. H. Laughlin and son Leigh of Lisbon autoed up from the county capital on Tuesday, but before reaching town, the machine began to buck and they had quite a time reaching their destination. After their arrival the machine was put under the care of auto doctor Geo. Severson, who finally got it in shape to resume its travels but not till the shades of night had fallen, so the return trip was postponed till the following day. Mr. Laughlin is accumulating material for a history of the early days of this portion of the state and is full of reminiscent stories of that period. The Progress man acknowledges a pleasant call and an addition to his stock of historical knowledge.

My personal library contains Laughlin's History of Ransom County, and an interesting one it is. He writes Okiedan Butte is a noted high mound on section 35, Island Park township, five miles south of Lisbon, as it is near the crossing of the Fort Abercrombie and Fort Ransom, Fort Sisseton and Fort Totten military roads, and the Overland Oregon Immigrants' Trail. Colonel Creel, of Devils Lake, then in the United States regular army, in the early sixties [note – that would be 1860's] had his command surrounded by an immense herd of buffalo and had to wait several hours for them to pass. He stood on Okiedan Butte for over four hours with his field glass, watching the herd pass. It was a solid moving phalanx extending in every direction beyond the vision of the glass. He estimated the herd at several hundred thousand...

Here's one more interesting story : Miller to Move Against Sheriffs - Attorney General of North Dakota Declares He Will Clean Up “Bad Spots” - Sheriffs of several counties in North Dakota are promised special attention in a short time by Attorney General Andrew Miller who is the nemesis of the illegal liquor trade in this state. Miller announced that he would move in a short time against the sheriffs of counties where violations of the law are most flagrant... Apparently too much turning of a blind eye was taking place at this time regarding liquor. Maybe one of the sheriffs was the one that called my grandpa and told him he was coming out to see if he had a still, the still which immediately got hid in the cupola of the barn. North Dakota was admitted as a dry state in 1889 and liquor sales were illegal until repeal in 1933. What was a thirsty man to do?

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If you think you've got it tough, read a history book!

Dreaming Spring

Mary showed me this picture a couple of days ago and reminded me that I took it last summer.  The reason she showed it is that she can't wait to get out and start digging in the dirt, and this reminded her of all those good things.  Spring just doesn't come!  The Bismarck high schools received permission from their board to start playing spring sports on Sunday, as long as it is after 2:30 pm so as not to conflict too badly with church activities.  An agriculture news report lamented that pastures can't handle any spring grazing yet, and in some cases, hay is becoming in short supply because of it.  Spring temperatures are forecast for the coming weekend, but the water is really going to run like rivers.  

...

One of the Boston bomber's name was Tamerlan.  No one in the media seems to have caught the irony in that.  A Mongolian chieftain by the name of Tamerlane probably accounted for killing more people than anyone in history.  His reputation is that of a cruel conqueror. After capturing certain cities he slaughtered thousands of the defenders (perhaps 80,000 at Delhi) and built pyramids of their skulls. Although a Muslim, he was scarcely more merciful to those of his own faith than to those he considered infidels. His positive achievements were the encouragement of art, literature, and science and the construction of vast public works. He had little hope that his vast conquests would remain intact, and before his death he arranged for them to be divided among his sons.
...
Apparently the Fargo Forum recently ran a series of articles about the Ku Klux Klan in North Dakota.  I never read them, but recently someone asked me if I knew that the KKK had a presence in my hometown of Sheldon.  It even went so far as to ignite a cross to intimidate somebody, probably a local Catholic church member.  During this period the group expressed anti-catholic sentiments, and said Catholics owed their allegiance to the Pope in Rome.  A long, informative article about KKK activity in North Dakota can be found by Googling the "KKK in North Dakota."  A state historian, Dr. Jerome Tweton, wrote an eye-opener.  A Presbyterian minister in Grand Forks apparently whipped up lots of anti-sentiment against blacks, Catholics, Jews, and liberals.  As many as a thousand members attended a convention in Grand Forks.

This all rose to interest again after the three high school kids dressed up in KKK garb to cheer in a sporting event their school participated in.  Crazy!  I doubt if the kids knew what they were doing, but it sure got everyone's attention.
...
Last Saturday Mary and I attended the North Dakota Archaeology Society's spring meeting.  I never went intending to do this, but I ended up selling a half dozen books.  The president of the group is a friend and he gave me a plug.  So my thanks went to him.  I did a third printing of the book by ordering one last 50 copies of the book.  When they are gone, I think I will call it quits on that one.  You see, I've started a new project and my attention goes that direction now.

We're still waiting to see if William Wade will get inducted into the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame.  I've got my fingers crossed.  I've done all I can do.  The new book deals with a similar time period.  A livery stable owner in Sheldon at one time worked as a freighter for Major Reno and accompanied him on the road to the Little Big Horn battle.
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Train after train of coal cars still go through here every day, and I always thought it was quite a sight.  Now, in addition, new trains go through made up of shiny black oil cars.  They are so new that the graffiti artists haven't yet started painting pictures on them.
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Just as I was about to post this blog, I looked up at the Today Show and there sitting beside Matt Lauer was the man who KFYR in Bismarck had just fired for uttering an obscenity.  I heard the live remark, but my ears couldn't quite believe what I heard.  Then there was a fluttering of action on the station with him giving an apology for what he had said and then his boss Monica Hannan coming on all flustered and making her apologies as well as covering her rear by saying that isn't the way she trained him.  Now there he is sitting beside Matt Lauer.  He will be on Dave Letterman tonight.  What a ride!  Notoriety because the first two words he ever uttered on a live tv show were obscenties.
Thought for the day: If you think you've got it tough, read a history book.

What's this?

There are a few things in life that I just don't like, and one of them is heavy snowfall in the middle of April.  Most of it fell on Sunday, the 14th, and on Monday we spent most of the morning clearing it out.  Lots of work was put into wrestling the snowblower around, but then here comes a snowplow and completely plugs the driveway.  It took another hour working to clear it away.  That's only half of it.  Mary got stalled at her Dad's place and her car still sits there.  I need to go clear snow there now so as to get it home.  Maybe we get these things happening to us so that we appreciate more the good things.

 The storm pretty well paralyzed both Bismarck and Mandan on Sunday and Monday.  Many establishments closed for the day.  I was looking for something in Sheldon's 125th anniversary book and saw a picture of an early memory.  Vern Loomer and his Caterpiller were the only way to clear roads in the latter 1940's.  I still remember riding to school and looking out the window at the high walls of snow canyon that his rig gouged.  (Rotary snowblowers were an awfully great invention.) 

The neighbors were out clearing snow at the same time.  Twin sons in the 7th grade live next door.  I hadn't seen them much this winter, and it was quite a surprise to see how they've grown.  They're on a basketball team that's really winning a lot of games, some kind of a league that will play much of the summer. One plays center (he's some taller) and the other plays forward.  I think I will have to start following the team when they reach high school.  I think that group will be one we'll be hearing from.

I wonder if the old moniker of "Imperial Cass" still sticks in the minds of our legislators.  Fargo wants state money to fund their flood diversion dreams.  Yesterday the state senate took it up and it looks to me that anti-Fargo forces hid behind waiting for federal funds.  Maybe everyone in the state wants that piece of state money pie and are glad to  see Fargo not getting it. 
 ...

Who has the answer to stop terror attacks?  Sure, culprits are caught and punished after the act, but that doesn't ever deter future attacks.  Hate and revenge keep recurring.  So much for our open society for it will become more and more closed.  People, old and young alike, out for a good time, are targets.  Will the Boston Marathon ever be the same?  Organizers are saying it will be bigger and better, but that's false bravado.

The parents of the twenty slaughtered students in Connecticut were on a roll in Washington as they'd started bending some ears to listen to their point of view.  Then something like Boston happens and completely smothers the national media's attention.  It happens time and again.  Some had started calling it the Gunfight at the DC Corral.

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When it comes to snow, we know Ole and Lena are close by:  Ole and Lena are sitting at their dining room table, listening to the radio and watching it snow out. All of a sudden there is a big message on the radio, "There is a snow emergency, please park your car on the odd side of the street." So Ole puts on his clothes and goes out to move his car. The next day the same thing, another snow emergency and the radio says, "Please park your car on the even side of the street." So Ole goes and parks his car on the even side of the street. A few days later there's a really bad snow storm and the radio says, "There's been a snow emergency please move your car to the ..." and the radio goes out. And Lena says to Ole, "Oh, forget it. Just leave your car in the garage this time.
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A car that sat up the street from us stood almost buried.  The snowfall did a big number on it, but then the snowplow pushed up a huge wall against it.  The owner will have to do a lot of shoveling.

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Some good reading!

I received another shipment of books to review from the magazine editor of the Western Writers of America. The first one I picked to read - Dragging Wyatt Earp: A Personal History of Dodge City. No, that doesn't refer to dragging the famous Wyatt Earp around on the ground. It has to do with the author and his friends driving back and forth along Wyatt Earp Boulevard in that city. A strong theme runs throughout his writing. He made reference to the Greek mythology character Sisyphus who is condemned to forever rolling a rock uphill, then when it comes tumbling back, must start all over again. That's what teens did (and do), drive endlessly back and forth on main or whatever the name of the street. He referred to his parents and their never ending home remodeling projects, the repetitious work in the junkyard his family owned, then later, the never-ending work on a ranch they built, and so on. A cousin managed a cattle feedlot out of Dodge City. The author asked if he could come experience their daily routine. Here again he saw the repetition of life, the endless looking after the cattle, doctoring their ailments, feeding, etc.

I remember entering a farm field with a tractor and some implement to start working a large field and thinking I will never get done with this job.  Another season and there I would be again.  One of the worst jobs, no, the worst job, I ever took was helping a turkey rancher working his flock doing something. Several of us teenagers went out there one day to wade through  those twenty-some thousand birds. Talk about never ending. One bird at a time. The figure of 20 hours of labor sticks in my mind. But there are many rolling-a-rock-uphill tasks: milking cows, washing clothes, feeding hungry workers, …

…

Sometimes I accompany the wife to the mall for walking in the winter months. She walks over half an hour, me half that. While I'm waiting, I often have a book in my pocket to pull out and pass the time. This morning I opened a Matt Braun book, The Last Town, that told the story of Bill Tilghman, a famous lawman, . The first chapters caught my attention. Tilghman accompanied the Governor of Oklahoma plus a couple cars full of state troopers to a small town where the Ku Klux Klan had established themselves very deeply. The governor said the intimidation they created among the folks of that community was going to stop. As a result of that visit, he ordered the national guard in to restore the order of law.  A little later on Tilghman got called to come into an oil boomtown and clean up the corruption and crime there.   I couldn't help but think that a century later similar scenes occur. This business of guns in the hands of unstable people keeps coming up, and the NRA keeps up their ranting to protect their “right” to own. The issue really isn't that guns be taken away from those mentally able to enjoy their guns in a sporting sense or a self-defensive sense, but that screwballs shouldn't have access to them, background checks.  One of the parents of the twenty slaughtered first graders said the NRA always says guns don't kill people, people do. This parent's comeback on that was if that's the case, let's start looking at those people then through background checks.  A group of Republicans senators have vowed to block an up or down vote on the issue by filibustering.  When it comes time for them to meet face to face with the parents of the slaughtered kids, I wonder how they'll act.  One network called it "Gunfight at DC Corral."  I think politics will get very interesting in the next couple of years.

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Finding background for stories takes lots of time. I'm still very interested in the livery stable business in my hometown and one of the men who ran one in the early 1900's. One of the few sources of information I've found said that livery stables have been generally ignored by historians. So it was with satisfaction that one source named an article in a 1986 edition of Montana: The Magazine of Western History - “The Livery Stable in the American West.” I spoke on the phone with a staff member of that journal today in Helena and ordered a back copy. She patiently explained what the article contained until I was satisfied that it would be worth spending $12.95 to receive it.

An online article in the Corpus Christi, TX newspaper said “The old livery stable was a male stronghold... was a place where men could congregate in the shade, sit on their heels, talk horses, and maybe share a sip of whisky.” Another source out of Buffalo, NY stated things a bit more harshly, “Often the scene of gambling, cockfighting, and stag shows, they were condemned as sources of vice.” Well, I'm just gonna have to look into it in more depth.