This picture is a personal favorite. It was Thanksgiving Day, 1973, and Mary and I were not yet married. She couldn't drive home because of the ice covered highways, so I made sure she came to my folks' place. We went for a walk in the afternoon and I took this picture which is full of memories. Note the buildup of ice on the wire. We married in June, 1974.
The opportunity arose to use this quote by Wendell Berry: “The thought of what was here once and is gone forever will not leave me as long as I live. It is as though I walk knee-deep in its absence.”
The activities of a recent Saturday gave me the opening to use Berry’s words in a personal way. The first incident entailed driving out to the farmstead auction sale of some friends who were dispersing many of their possessions. The same age as I, they’d decided to downsize in preparation for a move to city life in Fargo. Living over thirty years at this beautiful country place will no doubt be hard for them to forget.
I had to stop for the blinking red lights and lowered cross arms at the Soo Line crossing three miles west of Sheldon. An idling train sat on a siding waiting for another to meet and pass on the tracks. Two trainmen from the parked train stood there, one on each side of the lowered cross arms. As these men waited for the oncoming freight, I visited with one through my open car window.
I remarked it looked like a long train, but with only one engine pulling it was easy to guess the cars were empty. He thought that was true, but he figured there’s at least one more engine, either in the middle or at the end, but it was too far to see. I never remembered having to wait so long for a passing train; so just how long was it? When he told me it was over ten thousand feet long, that is two miles, I was surprised. He added some even get to be eleven or twelve thousand feet long.
This scene at that very same crossing took me back to a time seventy-some years ago when we’d travel to Enderlin on a Saturday night for shopping. Sometimes we’d have to sit and wait for a train coming from Enderlin as an old time steam engine pulled hard to climb the grade heading southeastward. Maybe that’s what gave birth to the saying “pouring the coals to it,” because thick black smoke was erupting like a volcano from its smoke stack. I can still hear it chuffing and puffing to gain some momentum. If my mind’s eye still sees correctly, I believe there was also an engine pushing to assist it up the incline which would return to the roundhouse when its job was done.
This day of stirred memories continued. That evening we attended a benefit supper in Sheldon for a young person with medical issues. Looking over the crowd the majority of them consisted of a generation or two younger than mine, and in the case of a baby make it three generations. Sure, there are still some of us around, but always fewer, never more.
Upon leaving the supper, the scene on main street struck me. It could have been seventy years ago when everyone came to town on Saturday night. Cars were parked on both sides, all the way down to where the bank building once stood, on the grassy area north of the grain elevator, and beside and back of the new community center. The sense of community runs strong here, even though most of the buildings are gone. All it takes is a reason to gather.
When taking a quick scan of songs dealing with Saturday night, one by the Bay City Rollers contains the lyrics, “Saturday night, I just can’t wait. Get out of the house and have a good time.” Many of the little towns in the area, Lisbon, Enderlin, or Sheldon, drew crowds of people to do just that.
It was a different reality. The world I once knew no longer exists. You may ask just who is this Wendell Berry whose quotation introduces this article? He is an agrarian conservationist and lover of the small farm and town. He’s written many fiction and non-fiction books as well as a good amount of poetry and essays. His “Sabbath Poems,” written while walking over the land on a Sunday stand out. Read him for a calm, measured outlook on life and the agrarian economy. He sets my mind at ease.
Book bans remind me of the “Forbidden Fruit” in the Garden of Eden … Line from an Ian Tyson song, “Oh the time has passed so quick. The years all run together now.” … Innocent people being killed on both sides in Israel and Palestine … Helendale is a beautiful sounding name … Another apartment building going up in view from my desk … Rich, black RRV soil being covered by concrete … The old cowboy said she looked at him like he was a blizzard in a fairy tale … The governor’s trying to buy his place on the stage again … Just learned: Will-o’-the-Wisp is a ghost light sighted over bogs, swamps, or marshes, must be similar to St. Elmo’s Fire …
Knee-Deep in Its Absence
The opportunity arose to use this quote by Wendell Berry: “The thought of what was here once and is gone forever will not leave me as long as I live. It is as though I walk knee-deep in its absence.”
The activities of a recent Saturday gave me the opening to use Berry’s words in a personal way. The first incident entailed driving out to the farmstead auction sale of some friends who were dispersing many of their possessions. The same age as I, they’d decided to downsize in preparation for a move to city life in Fargo. Living over thirty years at this beautiful country place will no doubt be hard for them to forget.
I had to stop for the blinking red lights and lowered cross arms at the Soo Line crossing three miles west of Sheldon. An idling train sat on a siding waiting for another to meet and pass on the tracks. Two trainmen from the parked train stood there, one on each side of the lowered cross arms. As these men waited for the oncoming freight, I visited with one through my open car window.
I remarked it looked like a long train, but with only one engine pulling it was easy to guess the cars were empty. He thought that was true, but he figured there’s at least one more engine, either in the middle or at the end, but it was too far to see. I never remembered having to wait so long for a passing train; so just how long was it? When he told me it was over ten thousand feet long, that is two miles, I was surprised. He added some even get to be eleven or twelve thousand feet long.
This scene at that very same crossing took me back to a time seventy-some years ago when we’d travel to Enderlin on a Saturday night for shopping. Sometimes we’d have to sit and wait for a train coming from Enderlin as an old time steam engine pulled hard to climb the grade heading southeastward. Maybe that’s what gave birth to the saying “pouring the coals to it,” because thick black smoke was erupting like a volcano from its smoke stack. I can still hear it chuffing and puffing to gain some momentum. If my mind’s eye still sees correctly, I believe there was also an engine pushing to assist it up the incline which would return to the roundhouse when its job was done.
This day of stirred memories continued. That evening we attended a benefit supper in Sheldon for a young person with medical issues. Looking over the crowd the majority of them consisted of a generation or two younger than mine, and in the case of a baby make it three generations. Sure, there are still some of us around, but always fewer, never more.
Upon leaving the supper, the scene on main street struck me. It could have been seventy years ago when everyone came to town on Saturday night. Cars were parked on both sides, all the way down to where the bank building once stood, on the grassy area north of the grain elevator, and beside and back of the new community center. The sense of community runs strong here, even though most of the buildings are gone. All it takes is a reason to gather.
When taking a quick scan of songs dealing with Saturday night, one by the Bay City Rollers contains the lyrics, “Saturday night, I just can’t wait. Get out of the house and have a good time.” Many of the little towns in the area, Lisbon, Enderlin, or Sheldon, drew crowds of people to do just that.
It was a different reality. The world I once knew no longer exists. You may ask just who is this Wendell Berry whose quotation introduces this article? He is an agrarian conservationist and lover of the small farm and town. He’s written many fiction and non-fiction books as well as a good amount of poetry and essays. His “Sabbath Poems,” written while walking over the land on a Sunday stand out. Read him for a calm, measured outlook on life and the agrarian economy. He sets my mind at ease.
Ralph and Connie's auction was today (Sat.) I went to enjoy lots of fresh air and friendly visits with acquaintances. Here are a few pictures of the large crowd. Then in the evening we attended a fundraising spaghetti supper in Sheldon held on behalf of a little baby Laine. Another large crowd.
A packed house turned out to welcome best-selling author Dave Eggers at Zandbroz Books. He recently encountered book banning in Rapid City for one of his books. As an 'in your face' reaction he saw to it that about 500 of his books were distributed free of charge to graduating seniors. He's very adamant about letting people make their own choices for reading material.
SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS - October 5, 2023 —
An Ongoing Struggle
When interviewed, Rex Lindemann a longtime Enderlin businessman said, “Lots of Germans settled here.” His remark came years beyond the cruel time of anti-German hysteria in our history. Of consequence some of those ill feelings existed here just as they did across the country. That fact introduces our topic.
Not so long ago, some in this country expressed displeasure with France in 2003 when that country opposed our invasion of Iraq. So we got back at them by promptly replacing the name French fries with freedom fries. One ice cream company ceased calling their product French vanilla changing it to Star Spangled ice cream.
The first appearance of that sort of thing happened during World War One. Sauerkraut was renamed liberty cabbage, dachschunds were now liberty pups, and frankfurters became hot dogs. Toilet paper could be bought with the face of the German Kaiser imprinted on each sheet. Some even wanted to change the name of North Dakota’s capital city to something easier on the ears. Some vandals crept around the town one night carrying a bucket of yellow paint and blotting out the “offensive” name from business places such as the Bismarck Motor Company and the Bismarck Shoe Hospital.
Of course, it was a desirable name when they called it Bismarck to attract German capitalists to buy U. S. railroad bonds. And little did they seem to know or care about General John Pershing’s name, background, or German spelling of his name - Pfersching.
Numerous cases of anti-German sentiment toward U. S. citizens can illustrate the mental set of Americans. The name John H. Wishek represents a good case in point. Founder of the town of Wishek, owner of several businesses, and all-around promoter of the area, he also had jealous detractors. For their various reasons they devised the excuse to have him tried under the Espionage Act.
Wishek was proud of his German heritage and had distributed a booklet to a few friends called “German Achievements in America.” His enemies thought that was all they needed to bring charges of anti-Americanism which resulted in a three-week trial. When it was shown to the court that Wishek had purchased more Liberty Bonds to support the U. S. war efforts than all of his rivals combined it helped quell the criticism, and a jury finally acquitted him and the charges were dropped.
We turn to the Enderlin Diamond Jubilee book of 1966 for their take on an uncomfortable incident occurring there. One passage states “Communities like Enderlin with large groups of foreign-born citizens, particularly those of German or Austrian descent, were particularly vulnerable to the type of irrational ardor which saw sauerkraut become Liberty Cabbage.” The article spoke to the fact of rumors circulating that Enderlin harbored disloyal citizens. Coupled
with some “yellow journalism” appearing in the Fargo News Courier stating that a meeting to assure loyalty to the U.S. with musical performances had been disrupted by pro-German elements. The local editor denied it in strong terms and published the retraction letter sent by the Fargo editor.
The canceled concert had probably started the brouhaha, but the reasons for it were all reported as legitimate. The soloist had lost her voice, lack of songbooks was blamed on a young boy who couldn’t find them, they couldn’t round up enough instruments, and the conductor had car trouble.
We will probably never know the extent of truthfulness in the whole affair, but an outgrowth seemed to be in the forming of the Enderlin Loyal Legion where the inaugural meeting brought in 500 people. The jubilee book told of the assortment of speakers including one who said, “We do not want to have in our midst communities where the people’s diet is lutefisk or sauerkraut. Let’s Americanize them.”
In my reading of history I’ve found the anti-German hysteria in World War One wasn’t the only time something similar happened. Open your Bible to Judges 12:6 and read how people trying to enter a country couldn’t pronounce the word Shibboleth correctly but said it as Sibboleth. They were slaughtered because of it.
President Andrew Jackson acted on behalf of white settlers who wanted land to grow cotton where the Cherokee nation lived and forced them to leave their homes and walk hundreds of miles to Oklahoma in what has become known as the Trail of Tears.
Anti-Japanese feelings and distrust rose in World War II. About 120,000 of them were displaced and sent to ten camps scattered around the country. The Chinese immigrants met with disfavor. The Great Falls spoke of the Chinese problem. In 1885 they noted that the city had “decreed that no Chinaman shall be allowed a foothold within its precincts.”
One only needs to read the history of nation struggles from over the years to know that different nationality groups have found disfavor for various reasons. The invasion of Ukraine is the latest. What will be next? It’s an ongoing struggle where a winner hasn’t yet been found.
