Statues of the Noted

I have visited our nation’s capitol on four different occasions, twice on business and twice as a tourist. While there it is almost mandatory to visit the National Statuary Hall where every state has placed two statues of their notable people.  Sakakawea and John Burke have been selected as North Dakota’s contribution to the collection. I set out to write this little article about them but hesitated after thinking it’s a bit mundane. Maybe some other time.

Would the sculptors of Sakakawea and Burke make for some interesting reading? Leonard Crunelle sculpted the statue of Sakakawea and Avard Fairbanks sculpted the statue of John Burke. Both of them did a nice job, but ho-hum, their personal lives don’t jump out to demand my writing about them. There was something else that begged a closer look.

That something else would be the mismatched proportion of women to men. Of the 100 statues in the Statuary Hall, women account for just fourteen of them. The familiar political name Senator Amy Klobuchar tells us what she thinks. “You don’t have to have a Ph.D. to walk around here and think, ‘Huh, they’re all men,’ ” Klobuchar says. “And that’s just wrong.”  She and a few others pushed legislation to add two more women, both Supreme Court justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O’Connor. That bill saw passage in March of 2022. 

A Washington Post article appearing a few years back reported that a nationwide count of public outdoor sculptures tallied 5,193 with only 394 or about 8% of women. The reason for the mismatched numbers probably relates to our history of male-centeredness. Our heroes have been political or military man figures. We often hear Willie Nelson’s song “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.”  

An artist pair named Gillie and Marc created a movement called Statues for Equality after noticing most of their orders for statues were for men. It has turned into a worldwide movement and some changes are resulting.

Returning to the fourteen women in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall, some familiar and unfamiliar names. Our own Sakakawea found a place in North Dakota’s books. It seems she became a replacement for Lewis and Clark when their guide abandoned them near Washburn, North Dakota. Her husband offered her services as an interpreter so they could  communicate with tribes as they made their way, and her personality was forever established as an important figure in the journey.

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins represents Nevada. A Paiute Indian she received encouragement to get an education, learn English, learn the white culture so as to help the tribe in their interaction with the whites, to defend Paiute rights, and to create understanding. Life Among the Piutes is Sarah Winnemucca’s powerful legacy to both cultures, the Native Americans and the whites. Her autobiography Life Among the Piutes appeared in 1883, the first book ever published and written by a Native American woman. 

I recognize a few of the other names. Willa Cather stands in one of Nebraska’s spots. Many of us have read her books about life on the great plains, such as My Antonia, O Pioneers, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and more. Many consider her one of the foremost American female writers of the 20th century.

Alabama chose Helen Keller for one of their statues. At about the age of two she suffered an illness that caused her to lose both her sight and hearing. That would have stymied most people, but a tutor named Anne Sullivan came into her life who taught her to communicate. She developed her ability into the Helen Keller International that aids people with vision loss, malnutrition, and diseases enabled by poverty.

Amelia Earhart of Kansas became interested in aviation in 1920 after attending an air show where she took her first ride in an airplane. Two years later Amelia sets an unofficial altitude record for female pilots after flying to 14,000 feet. In 1932 Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Her attempt to fly around the world ended badly. She crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, but she had made quite a name for herself.

Montana’s Jeanette Rankin became the first woman to hold federal office in the United States. She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916 for one term. Rankin was elected once again in 1940. A pacifist, she joined 49 others to oppose our entering World War I. Then in 1941 she became the sole member of congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan, even after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The 19th Constitutional Amendment gave voting rights to women nationwide. She introduced its legislation. One other notable achievement was her helping to found the American Civil Liberties Union.

States have the right to exchange their statues for another person if they so choose to do so. Maybe with the awakening of this unequal proportion of women to men, other women will be added.

Random Thoughts - Friday, Feb 28, 2025

 RANDOM THOUGHTS - Friday, February 28, 2025

Unvaccinated so number of measles cases rises … Chickens get sick and egg prices rise … Beef herds shrink and beef prices rise … Read a history book … On this day in 1646 a man appeared in court in Massachusetts for sleeping in church … ND legislators voted down free school lunches but helped themselves to a handout … Windy today, the strongest wind gust ever recorded in North Dakota was 73 mph in Minot on Jan. 3, 2022 … The older you get, the better you get, unless you're a banana … MLB opening game on March 27 … In its day there was nothing better than the good ole Class B state basketball tournament with all the small schools … A newspaper clipping where I am showing a 4-H heifer, all under control with the brand new white show halter I bought at Merlin’s Leather. The previous year’s show judge told me I needed a better one. Memories … 

Throw It Away, or Not

City dumps grow and grow with no end in sight. So much gets thrown away that it takes a small fleet of trucks for most communities to haul it away. Almost every item bought in a grocery store results in wrappers, boxes, and cans that end up getting tossed. The attempt to replace some of it with biodegradable packaging sound nice but races along like a slow moving sloth.

Then there are those who happily hoard their junk. I’ve seen cars in both Bismarck and Fargo in which the driver has only enough room to sit behind the wheel. Those cars are literally packed to the ceiling with debris, rags, garbage, rubbish, just pick a name and it’s in there.

A book on my shelf comes to mind: String Too Short To Be Saved by Donald Hall. Hall, a one-time U. S. Poet Laureate also wrote narrative stories like this one. He wrote and lived much of his life in the old New Hampshire farmhouse he inherited from his family. In his book he tells of cleaning the attic of the old house where he found a shoe box on which someone had written “String too short to be saved.” You might’ve guessed, it was filled with short pieces of string.

A friend of Hall’s was a miserly old bachelor named Washington who lived life on his terms. He described his home as a small shack that “had grown smaller inside every year. Layers of things saved grew inward from the walls until Washington could barely move inside it.”

Stories abound about some of these old hermits who leave behind a hoarded stash of money under the mattress and in various other places. Not Washington, though. He left behind a bucket full of thousands of straightened nails. Whenever he saw abandoned boards with nails still in them he pulled the nails and straightened them on his anvil. And the boards? Well, if they had any life left in them, he saved them, too.

Washington had a very independent spirit and the belief that a man’s word should be good.  Working  some as the community’s handyman and blacksmith, he took on a repair job for the local deacon to repair a wheel for his buggy. Telling the deacon he would charge four dollars for the job, he set about doing the repairs. When this customer came to pick up his buggy he told Washington he would pay only three dollars. Washington then refused to take any money and never went to church again. He concluded, if deacons cheated, churches were corrupt. He’d stay at home and read the Bible by himself.

His embedded principles guided his actions, one of them being to save whatever might come in handy again. His generation was like that. When I grew up we always had a pail filled with rusty bent nails. They worked fine the second time around. Sometimes, if that pail had been left out in the rain we’d have to reach into the rusty-red water to get them out.

The Indians utilized every bit of the buffalo. After searching for what each part served, you might gain an appreciation for their ingenuity. The one thing I did not find them using was the buffalo’s eyeball and that may have been oversight on my part. Bones, flesh, tongue, tendons, blood, and stomach were all used one way or another. They even used the hind legskin for pre-shaped moccasins. The plains tribes probably did not leave behind any garbage as they moved on with their nomadic ways.

It’s an easy step to look at the cultural practices of our own ancestors and the steps they took to set food on the table. A recent posting by a facebook friend told of his finding an old Bohemian cookbook belonging to his mother. Recipes in it yielded such dishes as braised ox-tail, calf brain soup, and fried cow udder. 

Settlers busied themselves making products from the raw materials of their butchering process. Head cheese used scraps mostly from a pig’s head such as its tongue, cheeks, snout, ears, and more. I ate it and thought it was okay. Dad and I fought over pickled pig’s feet. Blood sausage was common. They even prepared and ate chicken feet. Mary said her mother prepared it and it was tasty. I’ve never tried fried cow udder but have eaten Rocky Mountain oysters after drinking a few beers. 

The Norwegian immigrants brought their love of fish products with them. They learned how to preserve them for the winter months as a dish we call lutefisk. Dried cod is soaked in a mixture of lye and water to soften it for cooking. Lutefisk means “lye fish.” I wonder how many uses for dairy cream Norwegian cooks concocted, but tasty they were. I’m reminded of my Norwegian grandfather who poured liberal dollops of cream into his coffee which he drank from a saucer.

Back to the premise of this article and the garbage we accumulate today. Fargo is not even a large city and growing mountains of refuse are added daily. A fleet of trucks feeds it, heavy equipment works it to smooth it out, and no one has any qualms about throwing it away.

Where Did the Time Go?

An often heard phrase goes something like “where did the time go?” Another one says “The older you get the faster the time flies.” We marvel at this seeming fact in our lives and voice it in many variations. I’ve been on this earth for eighty-two years and can verify that it happens.

Eighty-two years ago, 1942, and the United States had been in a state of war for about three

months. I can’t remember any of the details of the war but did sense the feeling of euphoria that

pervaded the country for a couple of years after the veterans returned home. It ended with the

spectacular event of atomic bombs exploding over two different Japanese cities. It finally

convinced them to surrender, and people started getting their lives back in order to live normal

lives.

Peace didn’t last long. Another war started, the Korean War. Fought on a smaller scale than the

previous one, it nevertheless sucked a lot of energy out of the nation. Nothing was solved since

Korea divided into two entities and is left in the still-existing state of war. At its beginning few

people even knew where Korea was on a map, but many gave their lives. Not many of us knew

where Vietnam was either, and there we were fighting an escalating war from which we finally

withdrew.

For me, fifteen U. S. presidents beginning with Franklin Roosevelt flew by so fast I never got a

chance to know them very well. Twelve North Dakota governors beginning with John Moses

came and went, regardless of any jokes about Moses. Other developments in my life have

occurred, such as marriage, family, work, computers, land travel, space travel, and so much more

that it’s pointless to try to name them all.

Since my life has passed by so quickly, I can easily imagine time-traveling to the previous

eighty-two years which lands me at 1860. Unfortunately southern states had begun seceding

from the Union, Abraham Lincoln won election to the presidency, and numerous clashes between

northern and southern armies occurred. But time goes on. Dakota Territory formed, the first

transcontinental railroad completed, westward movement began, statehood was approved, Henry

Ford built cars, and Teddy Roosevelt became the hero of the charge up San Juan Hill.

We roll over into the 20th century by watching the Wright Brothers making the first flight, our

entering the first world war, opening the Panama Canal, and suffering through a worldwide

influenza epidemic. Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight, a severe drought coupled

with an economic depression struck, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote, and

the first minimum wage appeared at twenty-five cents an hour. In 1941, one big occurrence

overshadowed most of the news that year, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Just like that two lifetimes whistled by. To extend again, why not play with the idea of

considering one more lifetime, a third life, to show just how fast it went by. It began in 1778, anddarn it, there’s another war, the Revolutionary War. But maybe it’s for the best since patriots

from thirteen states rose up against British rule and resulted in independence which our

forefathers melded into a republic. Did you know Yankee Doodle became the new republic

unofficial national anthem. Our Constitution was written and we chose George Washington for

our first president. We ratified the Bill of Rights. John Adams appeared as the second president

and we experienced a peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the other.

The first forty years of the 1800s saw Thomas Jefferson doubling the republic’s size with the

Louisiana Purchase. Then to figure out what he’d just done, sent Lewis and Clark on a mission to

find out. We fought the War of 1812 and Napoleon discovered just how big Russia was in the

wintertime. The Industrial Revolution started. The Erie Canal connected the Great Lakes to the

Atlantic Ocean.

The Oregon Trail became an outlet for western travelers, the 49ers arrived in California looking

for gold, Walt Whitman wrote “Leaves of Grass,” John Brown raided Harper’s Ferry, and

Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species.”

I’ve packed a lot into these past 246 years, three of my lifetimes. This has been a silly exercise to

play with, but time really does fly by. It’s possible to play the scenario all the way back to the

dinosaur age or maybe Adam and Eve. But it’s the business of theologians and scientists to tell us

about that.

The better way to reckon time might be to look forward into the future of our descendants lives.

A Greek proverb packs a powerful meaning: A society grows great when old men plant trees

whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

Random Thoughts - Fri Feb 21, 2025

 RANDOM THOUGHTS - Friday, February 21, 2025

Preserve the wilderness … Read a history book … If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you … Did you hear about the Norwegian who loved his wife so much he almost told her … Is it baseball season yet? … Still making plans for the future … The sooner we shed oil dependance the quicker we’ll develop alternate forms of energy … In the book Atlas Shrugged the world stopped when productive members of society went on strike … The best TV is watching reruns of “Mash’ … Today in 1878 the first telephone book was printed in Connecticut … Did I say read a history book … Pies yesterday at Sons of Norway: strawberry rhubarb and blueberry, yum …

Too Much or Too Little, Part II

 Don’t we all possess little quirks or idiosyncrasies? One of mine is the dread of seeing beautiful, productive farm land taken out of production for reasons of the “greater good.” Something that benefits the majority of people always requires some sacrifice or expense incurred by the minority. Here in Fargo we are witnessing the construction of a mammoth project that I hope doesn’t turn into a boondoggle for which people have already sacrificed.

What is called the Fargo-Moorhead Area Diversion Project creeps snakelike around the city for thirty miles. The dirt work plus the accompanying right-of-way take 4,500 acres. Another 30,000 acres are being provided for in what the engineers call a staging area, i.e. reservoir. 

It isn’t just a trench or canal since a lot of infrastructure accompanies it. Drive south of Horace and find a large concrete gated dam structure, but that’s not the only one. Two more are being constructed. In order for people to pass back and forth across the canal it will take nineteen bridges to facilitate traffic.

It’s the three billion dollar (that’s with a “b”) projected cost caught my skeptic’s eye. Then, how well will it work in a high water year. We don’t know. My mind always goes back to the McClusky Canal where construction took place from 1969 to 1976. It’s purpose was to transport water from the Missouri River to Fargo and beyond. I still remember the time I drove past one spot near the city of McClusky where the canal cut was deep in order to facilitate gravity flow of water. At its bottom ducks swam amongst the reeds and slough grass. Am I the only one who thinks it’s a boondoggle?

Closer to home the Maple River Dam rose out of bottomland starting in the fall of 2004 with completion in the summer of 2007. Its planners claim it reduced the depth and duration of flooding in 2009 and that without it, downstream flooding would have been significantly worse. One farmer tried to monkeywrench the project by selling a 1.4 acre parcel to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa for some woolen blankets and beads. But that became brushed aside in the court.Whether or not much good comes from the project is something I don’t know, but it cost $30 million to build and claims 2,800 acres of farmland.

The big daddy of North Dakota projects has to be Garrison Dam. Funny thing, its construction cost was a puny $300 million compared to the FM Diversion Project’s cost of $3 billion. Much of the dissimilar numbers though needs to be chalked up to inflation. In an online inflation calculator, that $300 million figure becomes approximately $3.5 billion today. Remember the old maxim: liars figure, figures lie. Mathematicians can refigure the numbers. At any rate, that number does seem to be more in line when compared to the FM diversion.

Resources don’t quite agree as to the size of the dam’s reservoir. One source states it covers 383,000 acres and is the 3rd largest manmade lake in the U.S. That many acres is equal to 597 sections of ground which makes for 16.5 townships. It all needs to be applied to human terms, though. The dam project displaced more than one-third of the Three Affiliated Tribes and took up about 95% of their land. When the tribes signed it over, a famous picture of the tribal chairman is shown crying as he says, “We will sign this contract with a heavy heart … With a few scratches of the pen, we will sell the best part of our reservation. Right now the future doesn’t look too good to us.” 

It wasn’t just Indians who were affected. At the time of procuring the land, white ranchers lived and worked in harmony among them. They suffered displacement, too, and were forced to seek new opportunities and homes, too. My wife knew one family well since they became next door neighbors. At one son’s kitchen table the three of us sat down and learned about their move.

Everything the family owned needed to be moved. They decided to drive their cattle herd to their newly acquired ranch  with a crew of four cowboys, plus the family’s head who drove a truck with its box converted to sleeping quarters. On the first morning, friends from the community helped drive the herd through the narrow Four Bears Bridge. Care had to be taken to funnel the cows into the bridge to prevent their falling down the steep riverbank and into the river.

An incident occurred when the herd had successfully walked onto the bridge. A car entered from the opposite end. Some of the cows spooked and turned back causing them to do some hard horseback riding to get the cattle turned. Then when the cows were heading in the right direction they “came off the other end like they were shot out of a cannon.” Now they had another roundup ahead of them. He said, “If they had gotten into those badlands, we would never have found them.” They averaged about seventeen miles a day over a 10 1/2 day period.

Dollar cost can be found easily enough as can the acres of ground involved. It’s hard to calculate costs in human terms, though. For instance, eleven rural cemeteries face some degree of flooding risk in the FM project. On the Fort Berthold Reservation the churches and families developed many cemeteries until 1952, when the Garrison Dam forced the relocation of hundreds of families within the flood plain. The dam led to the loss of farmland, homes, and community infrastructure. While it is easy to criticize all these projects, they are deemed necessary for the greater good. Teddy Roosevelt was the first great environmentalist, but his quote just doesn’t apply here: “Leave it as it is.”

The Cuban Missile Crisis

  In Clay Jenkinson’s newsletter today he writes, “Few people alive today can imagine the terror of October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis provoked hundreds of thousands of Americans to build bomb shelters in their backyards.” 

I am one who remembers it and the fright I experienced while watching the live report on our television.