Pigeon Pie, Anyone?

Stories like the following are found in dark corners and dusty shelves, and when brought to light they can entertain, inform, or even disgust us.  As crude as some of the activity was, isn’t it unfair to judge people of the past when using today’s standards?

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I’m sitting here drinking a cup of coffee, remembering, absent-mindedly looking through the window at the yellow finches flitting in and out of the trees in the backyard.  I’ve lived long enough now to where I watch old friends pass, and I’ve forgotten much, but some scenes still replay.  Like the time I accompanied Grandpa and his partner and watched then spread a large net and hang it under the overhanging branches of the trees.  

While they fastened some weights to its edge, I was given the job of scattering kernels of corn on the ground beneath it.   When everything met with approval, Grandpa picked up a short block of wood that he’d brought in the wagon and propped it up under the net.  Then he did something I could never have imagined.  He reached into a burlap bag and brought out a pigeon, flapping and struggling until his large hand cradled the bird and pinned its wings.

Grandpa lived a purposeful life with little wasted motion.  He took a needle and thread from a small box in his shirt pocket and slid his thumb and forefinger to the bird’s head to hold it steady. I  couldn’t believe it, but he started sewing shut its eyelid with three or four stitches.  And then he repeated the procedure on the other eye, and all the while I’m just standing there looking dumbfounded. 

But more was to come this day.  From his shirt pocket he unraveled a few feet of cord and knotted one end to the pigeon’s leg and the other to the wood “stool.”  When it was anchored to the block, he released the pigeon to flutter helplessly in repeated attempts to fly and escape its blind confusion.  Two more pigeons emerged from that bag  and received the same treatment. Three birds flopping and flapping around at the end of their tethers made for a lively scene under that net which I soon learned was the object.

Finally he explained what we were going to do.  “We’re all set up, so now we’re gonna hide in those bushes over there.   Don’t move or talk cuz we’re waitin’ on a flight of pigeons to come in.”  My heart was pounding so fast in anticipation of this unknown that I struggled to sit still and be quiet.  Well, the time arrived; we heard a loud drumming sound in the distance that grew in volume and intensity over the next couple of minutes.  With the sun glinting off iridescent feathers, a flock of pigeons filled the sky swirling and turning and continually changing direction to look like they thought with one mind.  They kept lowering to land amongst the three pigeons that Grandpa had set for bait, and soon the ground was covered with them, dozens, maybe hundreds.  It was hard to estimate how many.  When the time was just right Grandpa and his partner pulled ropes with their slip knots and released the net.  The weighted edges brought it straight down on the top of the grounded pigeons and trapped so many of them.  

You can’t imagine such a flurry of flapping wings and squawking birds, so loud and jumbled that I could hardly hear Grandpa hollering, “Grab those branches and logs and lay them on the edges of the net.  Some are trying to crawl out from under it!”

Dear reader, don’t stop reading yet, our day wasn’t over.  The catch needed to be killed and cleaned for market.  Pigeon heads were sticking out through the netting, and the men grabbed each one by the neck and squeezed them hard between their thumb and forefinger.  Grandpa looked at me standing there and said, “Go to the wagon and find a pliers.  You’re not strong enough to kill them with your fingers, you can use that.”  I held that pliers in my hand but didn’t accomplish much with it.  It seemed so cruel.

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This story is imagined along the Sheyenne River where local historical evidence places it, but it could have been almost anywhere.  Pigeons could be found in many parts of the country numbering in the billions and when trapped, dressed, salted, and packed up in barrels they shipped them by the boxcar load to Eastern cities.  Pigeons sold for about a penny apiece in such places as New York City.  Slave owners didn’t spend much money to feed the slaves when such a cheap commodity existed.  Excess amounts were thrown to the hogs. 

Different reasons have been given for their numbers to decline from the billions to a state of extinction.  Of course, they were hunted, but deforestation robbed them of habitat, and diseases were thought to have played a part.

The term “stool pigeon”  is used today to identify someone who informs police of criminal activity and came from this era when pigeons were used to decoy others into a net.  At one time collecting pigeons in this manner for market became a cottage industry in which money could be earned by cash-strapped settlers.  

z1lynn.bueling@gmail.com

Rex the Red

At my mother’s funeral a lifelong friend of the family took me aside and told a story that interested me enough that I wanted learn more about it.  This friend, we can call him Charles, was a young boy at the time when he witnessed an incident he still remembers.  His parents were getting ready to leave the place and had vacated their house, but they decided to hold a little community dance in its empty rooms before moving on.  Some in attendance even danced on the chairs, but more about that later.  Now we’ll hear from a major player who set things in motion so people could relocate.

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So many years have passed that I wonder if my name Rexford Tugwell is remembered.  Some called me “Rex the Red,” an inaccurate tag that opponents hung on me because of actions I took.  I died in 1979 so you’ll have to suspend disbelief and imagine we’re visiting over a cup of coffee in this cafe.  My name was mentioned often during those hard times of the 1930s when I became involved with the establishment of the Sheyenne National Grasslands, commonly known as the government pasture southeast of Sheldon.

This country had been experiencing a long drought plus a severe economic depression when FDR took office in 1933.  We’ll just talk about the local area, the Sandhills region.  A local paper reported how cattle from adjoining counties were being crowded into its pastures.  Sandoun Township alone could handle 1,000 head with proper moisture, but now almost 4,000 grazed in it.  The over-pasturing weakened the turf, gave the strong winds a foothold and exposed blow sands which easily lifted to intermingle with the destructive dust storms of the “dirty thirties”.  

I was a university economics professor who received the “Rex the Red” label after visiting the Soviet Union in 1927 where I studied their central planning philosophy and recognized “the power of the collective will.”  Don’t read me wrong on this,  I am a true-blue American who never advocated communism for America, just greater control over the negative aspects of capitalism.  Ill will towards me because of that visit to the Soviet Union plagued me the rest of my government career, but I strongly believed in government economic planning.  When FDR took office he chose me along with four others to join his Brain Trust and advise him on his New Deal.

It might be hard to believe now, but in the 1930s, 70 percent of Americans earned their living from the land.  Needless to say, with no rain, no crops, and no money, farmers were forced to leave the land with no particular place to go.  FDR put me in charge of a program where I knew I could do some good - the Resettlement Administration.  We made the decision to have the government buy the land at a fair price and withdraw submarginal land from private ownership.  The object was to give the owners an opportunity to establish themselves elsewhere on more productive land.

The plan met with approval by some, but a negative response also developed.  A group in McLeod organized to oppose the purchase by saying this land was not submarginal, that with proper rain it would support cattle again.  Wyndmere merchants objected fearing the loss of business from too many farm families leaving the community.

We kept on in spite of resistance and prevailed.  A well-staffed office in Lisbon helped us identify the submarginal acres in this region which in your day totals 70,000 acres that’s been converted to public land.  Add an additional 65,000 acres of privately owned land and you have an area that comprises the Sheyenne National Grassland.  A grazing association operates that presently permits 60,000 head/months of livestock grazing shared among 56 allotments.

If you were to drive out that way in the summertime you’d see a beautiful countryside that’s environmentally sound with its green grass, rare wildflowers, and fat livestock.   The National Grasslands is under the U. S. Forest Service, a federal agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  It was one of those programs that became identified as the 3Rs, i. e. relief for the unemployed and poor, recovery of the economy back to normal levels, and reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression.  The programs we established became known by their acronyms:  CCC, AAA, WPA, NIRA, TVA, FDIC, SSA, FERA, and others.  

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Rexford Tugwell’s tenure as head of the Resettlement Administration lasted only two years, 1935-1936.  He agreed with FDR’s philosophy of democratic capitalism that imposed regulations on business, instituted Social Security,  besides accomplishing much more.

As for that neighborhood dance held at an empty house, it was my parents who danced on the chairs.  They weren’t married yet but they were having fun, at least Charles thought they were.

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lynn.bueling@gmail.com.