Dodge Power Wagons

 Dodge Power Wagons - This morning at a local restaurant I saw a new model Dodge Power Ram truck and it caused me to think back to the first time my attention was called to one. I was with a harvest crew in the summer of 1965 in Lake City, Kansas at the time and the farmer had an older model. The old farmer had had a hard time finding combiners for his wheat which had been flattened by a nearby flooding river. Tree branches came with the flood and his field was a mess. We got the job done for him, but it was difficult. 

     The first Power Wagons were first built in 1946 as a civilian version of the similar military truck. The one old Russell Lake had must have been almost that old, but it was still doing the job. The pictures show models from 1949 and 2020.

The Power of Scenery

Those who read Louis L’Amour books know how clearly and accurately he described the terrain where action takes place in his books. Oftentimes he included a topographical map of the subject area. He collected a good many maps of this type and studied them to paint word-pictures of the area in his stories.

Living in this northern plains state as we do, a topographical map would be uncluttered with all the squiggly lines that define a mountain state’s topography. In those states they’ve given names to mountain ranges and individual peaks that rise thousands of feet. Here in eastern North Dakota not much in the way of landforms has earned a name. In fact, the extreme flatness has been named instead, you know Red River Valley or Lake Agassiz. We need to look at the western part of our state to find buttes with names.

One landform is present though that grows and grows and is becoming quite massive: the Fargo landfill. You only need to drive north on Fargo’s 45th Street, go across Main Avenue for another seven blocks or so and you’ll come upon it. Even if I am accused of stretching the truth or a fact occasionally, I am here to attest to its large size. When Caterpillars and large trucks climb to its top to scatter and pack the garbage, they look mighty small up there.  

The wife and I recently had a dinner table discussion about the amounts of garbage each household generates. Nearly everything except maybe a few potatoes or some nuts and bolts comes packaged and is utterly useless for anything else. Into the trash can the wrapping goes. While we were growing up, very little garbage accumulated. A burn barrel took care of combustibles, an outhouse received the Sears catalog, and broken machinery parts went into a pile for use in welding repairs. Furthermore, broken appliances could be repaired and put back into duty.

Many shows on Youtube can be found with archaeology the topic. On many of them, they need to dig and dig to find remains of the past which often times are few and far between. If they find the remains of a broken buckle from a Roman soldier or the ankle bone of a baby from prehistory, they are beside themselves. Plastics being used today will last long enough for future archaeologists to find by the truckload.

I don’t think it’s too far afield to mention that town dumps used to be interesting places to visit. We had one in Sheldon that was an irresistible draw for us young fellows. One noon hour a few of us decided we should take a little walk out to it and explore. At the time, the town was only 75 years old or thereabouts, and the pile still wasn’t very big. We had fun! I picked something up that looked good to me even though I don’t remember what it was. Somehow it even got transported home as treasure. 

A problem developed though - no one had a watch. As we enjoyed ourselves, time travelled fast until someone thought we should be getting back. Uh, oh, as we neared the once filled playground no one remained. Classes had started without us. We had a tough lady for a teacher who we’d all seen administer some pretty severe physical punishment at one time or another, and we had started expecting the worst would befall us. As we marched in silently, not a word was spoken, and our fellow students sat staring at us, anticipating some good entertainment. The teacher was in good spirits that day and said simply, “Have you boys been out sampling treasures in the dump ground?”

Funny how this started with Louis L’Amour topography, then city dumps, and now finally gets to the subject that generated this article. On my desk I have a book sent to me for review by the Western Writers of America titled “The Power of Scenery: Frederick Law Olmsted and the Origin of National Parks.” His work predates the work of Theodore Roosevelt and Edwin Muir, but because of the work of people like these, we still have beautiful scenery to view and walk through.

We started this discussion with Louis L’Amour and we might as well end with him and his wisdom. In his book “The Iron Marshal,” one of his characters states there are more than two hundred thousand horses in New York City. “Two hundred thousand! Did you think of that? Each horse will drop twenty-five or -six pounds of manure per day, and there’s a stable in near every corner block on Manhattan! Think of that! The day will come when they will not tolerate a stable or a kept horse in the city! You’ll see!”

It would build up in huge piles, attract flies, and stink terribly in hot weather. But at least it was biodegradable.

 The Fountain of Youth restores the youth of anyone who drinks or bathes in its waters, or so we would wish. On a trip to Florida we came upon it and entered to taste of its water. I still haven’t felt anything, but I’m waiting, even though it must be going on ten years. I’m reminded of it because the younger son and his family are now down in Florida, and in visiting with the neighbors, they, too, will soon head down there. I just can’t restrain myself from writing this hokey limerick:

I drank from the Fountain of Youth,

But it’s claims hold no truth. 

I’m still growing old, 

and if truth be told, 

I’ve gotten a bit “long in the tooth.”

A Grandson's Performance

 We headed to the Grandson Lucas's performance in "Elf: The Musical" this weekend. He's a grownup now who towers over Grandma Mary. What will become of him we don't know, but chances are it will be something good!

Veterans Day, 2021

Veterans Day occurs on November 11 every year in the United States in honor of the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918 that signaled the end of World War I. It is a commemoration of all who have served and makes me pause just a bit to remember. The average person usually goes about his business without giving it much thought; some even complain there is no mail delivery. I always try to give attention to the day in appreciation.

I’ve never worn a uniform but instead walk vicariously with veterans through reading and listening to their stories. A large body of literature attests to the sacrifices and efforts made by them. All the men and women who have served deserve recognition, but it is a rather small percentage who do the actual fighting. The rest serve behind the lines in support roles. 

One book I’ve read, “The Long Way Home” by David Laskin, deserves mention because it revealed a little known fact: the men drafted to serve in the U.S. army spoke 43 languages. It was a time of heavy immigration and foreign born people who had flooded through our borders found themselves draft eligible. It didn’t matter if aliens hadn’t yet become citizens; any able-bodied men, with varying degrees of skill in using the English language were fair game. One of my grandfathers found himself in this position. He, a Norwegian born immigrant, was drafted and served.

Many draftees were from countries we were fighting such as Germany, Poland, and Italy and some concern was voiced as to their willingness to be drafted. On the whole, though, draft registration went rather smoothly. The only resistance of note came from the Irish copper miners in Butte, Montana, who harbored strong anti-English sentiment. It intensified when a terrible fire in the mines killed 168 of them as they were mining copper demanded by the war effort.

One can’t be well read in terms of wars without having read “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Written by a veteran of the German army, it gives a stunning picture of what German soldiers were experiencing. Then with the rise of the Nazi party in Germany, the book was banned because they deemed it anti-war and supportive of the Jews. A rather popular movie was made of it where one night a Nazi mob entered the theater. They demanded the film be stopped and released mice and tossed stink bombs to clear everyone out.

Three years ago we were in Fredericksburg, Texas where in the National Museum of the Pacific War I bought the biography “Ernie Pyle’s War: America’s Eyewitness to World War II.” A reporter, his style of writing made lots of friends among the servicemen and women as well as the people back home in the USA.  Even while he worried he wasn’t giving a clear enough picture of the fighting, soldiers knew he came closer than any other journalist. He was killed on the battlefield by a machine gunner and a monument was erected on the spot inscribed with “At this spot the 77th Infantry Division lost a buddy, Ernie Pyle, 18 April 1945. 

He is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. When we traveled to Hawaii on a tour I remember riding a tour bus through the cemetery when the guide with a microphone said it was where Ernie Pyle was buried. When I looked down from the bus window, there was his gravestone beside the roadway.

His columns read much like Hemingway’s writing, simple yet expressive. His most famous piece was “The Death of Captain Waskow.” After watching a string of mules with each carrying a body come down the hilly trail, Pyle wrote, “‘This one is Captain Waskow,’ one of them said quickly. Two men unleashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the stone wall.”

Stephen Ambrose’s book “The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany” gives a readable account of what war in the sky was like. Special attention is given to George McGovern who piloted one for 35 missions. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for landing his crippled bomber on a short runway used only by small fighters, thereby saving his crew and aircraft.

 

I once had the opportunity to visit briefly with George McGovern and asked what he probably thought was a stupid question.  “What was it like flying up there in midst of the flak and fighters coming at you?” He answered humbly, “I was scared all the time.”

David Halberstam’s “The Coldest Winter” deals with the Korean War. His writing in the book as chilling as the title. Korea was the downfall of the arrogant Douglas MacArthur when he kept acting on his own impulses instead of following policy from Washington, DC and pushed President Truman to the point where he fired him. MacArthur had strong supporters, but given time he faded away. Korea saw loss of American lives who were not well-enough equipped nor ready to fight again so soon after WWII ended. 

How many thousands of books have been written about warfare cannot even be guessed at. Too often, they are about the generals at the expense of putting the soldiers into a nameless mass to do their bidding. I prefer the literature written by those who fought in the trenches: “The Things They Carried” and the Vietnam War, “The Band of Brothers” and the invasion of Normandy, “With the Old Breed” in the Korean War. 

All the books I’ve mentioned are on my shelves, and reading them has put me as close as I’ll ever get to the veteran experience, but it’s what I can do. Praise be to the veterans!

History Rhymes

 I came across an interesting piece in a history book I have. I'm developing it into my next news article:

The pyramids appear to have transformed Egypt from a country of scattered villages into a strong civilized nation. How spectacular a first demonstration of what an organized state could accomplish! What unprecedented supplies of food, what mass transport, shelter, and sanitation! The power of the state was now revealed. While the primeval state created the pyramids, the pyramids themselves helped create the state in a focus of communal effort, of common faith in the living sun god. The enormous task over many years must have brought into being a numerous democracy, which could be enlisted for other purposes.

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I think this has implications in regards to our infrastructure problems, to name just one idea.