Buffalo Gal

All of us have gone through grade school….some call it elementary school but in my time it was “grade school”
meaning grades K-6. Then you went in with the “big kids” in the junior high and high school— in most small towns anyway..maybe some went to Middle School but we did not..right to a building that housed grades 7-12..we had to “swim with the sharks ” at ages 12 or 13.
Many of us had lots of bruised feelings, tough bullies and other negatives to get through. Judith Viorst wrote a book of poetry about such times and I checked it out again and am re-reading it for the umpteenth time…I truly love her poems about being a young kid in grade-junior-high school. They speak to the heart of most everyone who remembers what it was like in “those days”.
For any man who remembers being a boy in love with a girl who seems to enjoy ignoring him,here is a poem to break your heart!

I can’t get enoughsky
Of Lizzie Pitofsky…
I love her so much that it hurts.
I want her so terrible
I’d give her my gerbil
Plus twenty two weeks of desserts.

I know that it’s lovesky
‘Cause Lizzie Pitofsky
Is turning me into a saint.
I smell like a rose.
I’ve quit picking my nose,
And I practically never say ain’t.

I don’t push and shovesky
‘Cause Lizzie Pitofsky
Likes boys who are gentle and kind.
I’m not throwing rocks
And I’m changing my socks
(And to tell you the truth I don’t mind).

Put tacks in my shoes,
Feed me vinegar juice.
But promise me this:
I won’t die without kiss-
Ing my glorious Lizzie Pitofsky.

And one more that is my almost favorite one:

It’s hard to love
The tallest girl
When you’re the shortest guy,
For every time
You try to look
Your true love in the eye,
You see
Her bellybutton.

Judy Viorst remembered what it was like to be young!!!!

It is still another beautiful sunny September day…warm, bright, gentle breeze blowing….oh the golden days can stay around for as long as possible…no even longer!
If I were in charge of the world, every day would be like today!
I suppose it is too cool to grow things but I love this kind of a day.
I was so pleased to read in the Sunday FORUM about Cal Olson who worked as a newsman” at the FORUM for many many years before he took an editorship at an Iowa city. His daughter Cathy (Olson) McMullen was a writer for the FORUM also but like her Dad she moved on to teaching at Concordia. I always loved the writing,the photos and everything the Olson father and daughter did, journalistically.
Cal Olson was special….he was my “hometown boy who made good” hero. He grew up in a house that was about one-half block from my childhood home. When I was still an eager beaver pre-schooler, I would sit in my swing and watch the “Big Kids” walk by on their way to school. Oh how I wanted to be part of that walk to school but I did not get my change til the fall of 1944.
I think Cal Olson had graduated or nearly finished his High School years by then. His brother Charles was younger and he was one of the lucky ducks who got to walk to school past my yard where I sat daydreaming about first grade in my swing.
I am so glad that Cal Olson’s pictures are going to be preserved by a department at NDSU. I hope there will eventually be a display there where people can see his wonderful photography; his most well known picture taken after the horrible June 1957 Fargo tornado shows a 21 – year old man carrying the body of one of the children who was killed in the tornado which ripped into NW Fargo on a sultry summer day in June 1957. Six children in one family (the Munsons) died in that tornado and that was the worst loss of all. Many others were injured, more died, homes were destroyed but the Munson children haunts us still..those of us who remember that day…and I do remember it. I had just finished my freshman year in college and was home from my summer job at the Towne Theater in Fargo on the evening the tornado destroyed so many homes and lives. The Clay County Historical Society in the Hjemkomst museum at Moorhead has films and photos of that day…many of them taken by Cal Olson I am sure.

We attended a special celebration today with old friends at the Christian Mission Alliance church in our small town. It marked 75 years since the church began in a big tent in the summer of 1936—the summer my parents have said was the worst one in the entire decade of the 1930′s. It was dry and so hot people slept out in their yards, hauling beds outdoors due to the dryness and total lack of mosquitoes. Dried up lake beds all over the area were planted with potato crops during that hot summer. But the people who began a journey of faith that summer did so with faith that their church would take root and grow and it has! From a small builing that went up in 1938 they have increased in size and faith many times multiplied. They are living proof that God is faithful to those who trust Him. They have the soundest doctrine I know of in all the other churches around here….they believe the Bible and trust the Word completely. They have been blessed for their trust and dependence on the Lord, alone.
Today was a wonderful day of memories and also of looking ahead. They have already outgrown their new building that went up in the middle 1980s and are saving money to build an addition that is needed. I like the fact that they do not borrow money to build…they wait and trust til they have enough saved and then they build…ddoing much of the work themselves.
From a fellowship that did not number 100 they are now way into the hundreds who attend weekly worship. Their faith is palpable and shines ontheir faces. They have a “missionary daughter’ in China—a girl I remember who was part of the fellowship when my sons were in high school. Today… thanks to high tech…Skype…people were able to hold a live conversation with JoAnne and her family talking live from China!!!!
Many of their former pastors were with them today…bringing a lot of love and encouragement to the people at the CMA fellowship.
We also ate a meal with them and they had done a marvelous job of organization–for which they are well known!!! We all had chicken breasts, cooked corn and carrots and tossed salad plus rolls and cupcakes.
I am so glad we took the time to share their special day with them. We know so many friends who are part of the fellowship.
I am going to go to a womens’ Bible study there beginning in October….it is only a few miles from my doorstep to their church. They are going to do an in-depth study of Peter and Paul and the book of Acts…the beginnings of the Christian Church.
These folks know about beginnings and present times and future hopes.

I have everyday stuff on my mind. I need to write about it.
Each day every one of us does a lot of “ordinary” stuff—or follows a routine is more likely. My 50+year best friend and soul mate has a list of “Cs” for my ordinary start to the day. He posted it right above my head as I sit at the computer table I use each day. 1. CAT: I do start the day taking care of my kitty so it is true 2. COFFEE: also true..I put on a pot of coffee so I can energize myself with a drug (caffiene) 3. COMPUTER: nearly always true; news junkies need a news fix early in the morning. 4. CROSS WORDS: does not happen in the morning except when I eat… I sometimes take up one of my crossword books..this helps to organize my mind by doing something orderly….fill in the squares and voila! my brain is engaged. 6.CUSS OUT—-this is NOT TRUE… this is teasing.
** As long as the day is fair and sunny it is nice to sit on the deck and bask awhile….this is not a good motivator for “getting to work” around the house or the yard…but it is so nice especially when you think about November and on….Arghhhhhhhh (I am a pirate language user now)

*** I wish I knew how two retired adult people who have no children or grandchildren on the premises except when they visit….how can such people make such a mess???? I did not say “make such a dirty mess”…it is clean around here but it is usually messy. Why do we stack things we have tabled (literally) on one end of our big dining table? Every now and then I have a clean-up fit and empty the table and leave it looking like normal tables look..but give it a day or more and it is back to SQUARE ONE.
Every room is like this……shoes and socks by sitting places right where we leave them when we relax in the evening……sometimes a piece of clothing..especially a jacket or sweatshirt…..a pile of newspapers from Sunday (gotta look at those ads before they get recycled) But why does it take all week. Probably because I sit on the deck too long at a time and I forget about the paper stack. I do not even want to mention upstairs…I MUST go there and PICK UP today..before the Bison game comes on at 6 p.m.
Neither one of us is “neat freak”….that is my only answer to my first question.

***Doorbell just rang around ten times…either a husband or a son.. it was husband who handed me a big bag of the sweetest ripest plums from our shelterbelt. More cooking, straining and canning…we love plum juice things. I guess I will not totally abandon the fall harvest for today…not when there are plums like the ones I just got.

** It is pretty ordinary at this place at this time of the year to be involved in harvesting garden things and preserving them—-already done: tomatoes and apples; still a few green peppers (giants) to pick but that can be held off for a few more cold nights especially if I use the old sheets to cover them up once more.

** Fall Plowing: one of our fields is being expanded for the benefit of our farmer who rents our tillable acres. Some tree cutting and stump removal in the past two weeks has allowed for a bit of extra room for the field to be enlarged ….the blackened furrows look pretty through the west window.
Now comes the disking and the other thing I cannot remember. Field ready for planting come spring 2012. MBF is doing this all with his big Johnny Deere tractor and some new-old equipment purchased recently. Such fun he he is having every day. This is also very ordinary—-a retired guy who likes to work 14 hours each day….with no naps ever!!!! I cannot do this…the 14 hour thing…that is my “ordinary”…taking it easy for 14 hours if I can!

****New Job For An OId Girl: I am going to become a proof reader for our local newspaper as of Monday morning….just a few hours a week. Just right for a retired mess – maker. But if time allows said the Editor, I can write some feature stories, as well as my weekly column that I have been doing for a half a year already. The most recent one is on the return of Big Bluestem grasses and then the next one is on the time in local history when our little town shipped out more seed potatoes than anywhere else in the U.S. (Over 1000 railroad carloads in 1925) In the first half of the 19th century, “Early Ohio” potatoes were raised in the fields that now grow wheat, corn and soybeans. I gfot ahold of some Early Ohio seed potates once from a southern MN seed catalog…Early Ohios were the most delcious potato!!!!!!
I grew them in our garden one year.
“Blight” got too bad by the early 1940s so potato crops were no more…..Selkirk wheat was developed in Canada and replaced potatoes as a cash crop…but the history of the years of potato raising are fascinating and I have done a lot of reseach on that topic. I found a lot of old pictures too of the “potato pickers”–it was all hand picked back then—there were no mechanized picking machnines yet.
8 potato warehouses were in our town…a potato blight (a fungal disease for which there were no farm chemicals) ended the potato growing eras.
I am certain that the good potatoes were a lot healthier than the current chemically doused spuds.

** Ordinary days…..good days that pass too quickly.
But it is time to get some September Sunshine on the deck. I need to go back to one of my early morning “cees”….the coffee pot and head out to the deck where I can watch my little brown birds feeding….and pet another C…my CAT known as Kitty.

In debates before the Party actually nominates a candidate there are always “hit lines” that are remembered more than substantive debates.
Last night’s Republican debate from Orlando, FLA featured the almost unknown former Governor of New Mexico saying that “his neighbor’s dogs have created more shovel-ready jobs” than the Obama administration.
It was the huge laugh line of the night cracking up the other candidates, the entire audience and the Panel of question askers.
I recall Llloyd Bensons’ line to Dan Quayle in a VP debate in the 1992 election cycle:
“Mr. Quayle…you are NOT John F. Kennedy”
Those few words did a lot of damage that year.
Ronald Reagan diffused Walter Mondale in 1984 by grabbing onto some reference to Reagan’s age by saying something like this: I will not allow my Opponent’s age and inexperience influence this campaign.
It totally cracked up the entire audience including the Panel that time also. And scored big points for Ronald Reagan.
Humor does that. “The humored life is much better” is a quote I hear around home a lot and there is mucjh wisdom in it.
I watched the last hour or so of the debate having been previously occupied by one of my favorite British film series..”Foyle’s War”. It took precendence over the opening of the debate sponsored by Google and FOXnews.
I think the Republicans have 9 strong candidates this year. Anyone of them could be president…..many of those who are debating should be recruited by a Republican president to serve in a future administration. Herman Cain is especially a noticeably able man…I really like his good sense and his ideas for changing our governing from the top – down philosopy which is currrently riding high around Washington, D.C. And Newt Gingrich ,for all his faults, is truly the “brains” in the conservative part of the party.

There are some news pieces and op – eds today if one wants to read about the debate last night:

1.”Rick Perry, Mitt Romney stumble during GOP debates while Newt Gingrich and other second tier candidates shine” (Andrea Tantaros, NY Daily News 9/23/11)

2. “At Orlando debate, Republicans aim barbs at Obama” (Scott Powers, “Orlando Sentinel” 9-22-11)

Charles Krauthammer’s weekly column is also worth reading (every week.. for me)
“Return of the real Obama” (Charles Krauthammer in Washington Post, 9-23-11)

It is another day in the September Sun today. I have to do my relaxing in the yard swing again and turn my face up to the sun like a sunflower plant.
Think of the words of the old classic song: “Oh, its a long long time from May to December…but in between.. there is September” ( or something like that) I did not look it up.
Enjoy another sunny Indian Summer day!!!

(writtten on the eve of the fall equinox after getting sunburned today)

September sun you look like you
are moving south farther every day.
But you are not moving at all,
the earth is tipping northwards
and you look like you are going
south like the other wimps do in the wintertime!
you are not as hot as you were on June 22
but you are still powerful—-powerful
enough to cause my cheeks to turn red
when I spent time under your beams and
rays while digging up a new tulip bed.
I sat down to rest in a yard swing
when I got tired of the bending and digging.
My kitty joined me reluctantly when I
grabbed her and carried her to the swing.
She did not stay long. She had lots to do
under the Septmember sun today…..
lay under the bushy flower shrubs and
watch things go by or listen for the kind
of noises that drove her wild when
she was younger.
I would like to lie down under a row of
zinnias or under the moonflower vines too,
it would be peaceful to just listen to
the swish of grasses and weeds.
to hear little animals run through
the grass…..to hear birds more
clearly than ever…. because living
human makes it hard to hear
things like that.
I am going to sit under you tomorrow
September Sun.
You better be shining brightly again.

No..I am not just “glumpy” today… I am downright GRUMPY and CRABBY and it is not just the glumpy gray fog and rain and clouds this time.
I got in a traffic mess on Monday on 34th Street south in Moorhead….which has become a major north – south artery in that part of town. I turned off I- 94 on Monday expecting my usual quick trip up 34th to the EasTen shopping center and was more than surprised to find a long line of vehicles moving about 10 mph…or slower.
And what was holding it up? Three VERY HUGE pieces of new farm equipment from RDO making their way up the MAJOR NORTH SOUTH ARTERIAL STREET IN MOORHEAD.

Leading the way was an enormous combine that took up both lanes of the right side of the street, followed by an RDO pickup pulling another huge piece of agricultural equipent followed by one of those HUGE skinny, high- wheeled things that are used to spray crops. The parade was long and SLOW ; it took 30-35 minutes for the long line of held-up vehicles to get to Highway 10.

There oughta be a law…..against such HUGE equipment being hauled on a through way street or avenue in the busy traffic that has become so common in Fargo-Moorhead. Ye,s yes, I know RDO needs to move its equipment BUT is it not possible to find alternative routes that do not interfere with the flow of normal traffic on busy streets and avenues? Yes, yes, I know this is an agricultural community and concessions must be made.
I am plenty irritated by RDO’s blocking traffic on that arterial roadway on Monday afternoon. I felt like contacting several public entities in Moorhead but I doubt if it would help……you know the anwser—RDO pays taxes on the highways and byways in Moorhead….it is a BIG business and we cannot interfere with their business and commerce..yadda yadda yadda……but am I just crabby and grumpy for being this way about that traffic jam and holdup?
I do not know. I have gotten it “off my chest” or off from whatever part of my body it was lodged!!!!!

Now I can go back to occasional “glumpiness”.

Today has turned out bright and beautiful after thick morning fog out our way…lakes effect out here!! Fargo radio described the morning as sunny and we were enveloped in thick fog east of Fargo.

I am going to eat my bean salad and proceed to find my digging fork and churn up some flower beds for fall planting (tulip bulbs are all being moved to the west side of the Rancho dwelling)……at least til my foot muscles start killing me and I have to go back in the house.

Sunshine, here I come!

My friend with whom I corresond via e mail on a daily basis..and I…have possibly come up with a new word…..GLUMPY. It is a combination of “gloomy” and “grumpy” which is how some folks get on days like yesterday and today (not me of course!)
Gray skies with rain falling from them remind a lot of people of darkness, sadness, tears and other negative connotations but such feelings can be risen above…if one tries hard.
It is tempting to slump onto a sofa or into a comfortable recliner chair and spend time reading or watching…films or television. It is day that speaks of desired inertness.
I am quite sure this is natural…or nature’s way…one does not see either animals or birds being active but rather they protect themselves from the cold rain and wind.
So we do not need to feel guilty if we do the same.

But humans usually are not comfortable being “glumpy” for a whole day or week….if the weather affects them.
Rather they turn to “projects” if they are no longer employed due to retirement or other factors.
Glumpy days become days to sort through all those old pictures you vowed to finish when you retired 7 years ago.
Glumpy days can lead to fits of “sorting things” and cleaning out spaces usually ignored. Closets can get emptied and reorganized and stuff that has lived in those closets for long periods of time can be put into bags and boxes for second and stores or rummage sales.
Books can be read and studied. Letters can get written.
Or giving in to modernity……the internet can be accessed for reading or learning or—–many things I do not know about nor do. I do like to read things off the internet, especially on line news sources (that is what glumpy news junkies do).
I have been out and about early already…had to drive to a town about 7 miles north—-past big piles of sugar beets at a piling station that was busy with loading and hauling already…..there is a good body shop in that northern town where we bring things that need body shop fixing…like a car window that is in need of attention. Car windows now longer get opened by a crank on the inside door….tiny computers in the depths of cars control windows and many other things on cars now.
Going out into the strong north wind and falling rain/mist was not how I would have started my day if I had my ‘druthers…but I had to drive so the other driver could get home without walking for seven miles in wind and rain.
I am tempted to read all day today. I have a book loaned to me by a friend who was born in Java. The book is about Krakatoa..the volcanic mountain that blew itself apart in 1883.
I have always been fascinated by vulcanism……much of earth’s surface and earths’ “innards” are affected by that natural process. Many of the Pacific (and Atlantic)islands or island nations were formed by volcanos.
I have things to do though——lovely fresh apples off a tree in Cass County to cook into apple juice, unattended closets and old pictures to be sorted.
But—-I have a feeling that today’s GLUMPY day may be a combination of a “glumpy day” project day and the strong desire to start reading the new book.

READIT! READIT!
I used to make a reading bulletin board with a large green frog saying “READIT! READIT!”

So here are some gleanings for reading about current events and politics for those inclined to that sort of thing.

1. “Ask Matt Labash: Is Obama the Antichrist?” a hilarious piece by Matt in response so a supposed question he received.
(9/20/11 in Daily Caller)

2. Obama’s Urgent Jobs Plan: right now! right now! means sometime next month maybe”
(since the jobs bill urgently proclaimed, Dick Durbin of IL has since said “maybe next month” So much for urgency!!!

3. “Kansas ‘Rodeo Exceptions’ Claimed Unborn’s Life”
Jack Cashill, 9-19-11
A new look at the practices of the Kansas abortion provider who was gunned down in church; and his protector former Governor Kathleen Sibelius.
VERY INTERESTING

4. TOP TEN: Example of Liberal Incivility” Human Events on 9-17-11

5. “Cleaver: If Obama wasn’t president, we would march on the White House”
(Alicia Cohn in THE HILL, 9-18/11)
an admission by Missouri Pol Cleaver about the jobs crisis among
Black citizens)

6. TOP OF THE TICKET column in LA TIMES, 9-19-11

I love the word GOLDEN. It evokes a sense of warmth and beauty to me.
The earth is getting into a GOLDEN mode these days.
The fields around our place are GOLDEN with ripe field corn and ripe soybeans. The wild grasses are also GOLDEN…..some of them are even reddish-GOLDEN or GOLDEN with a tinge of blue and purple (the Big Bluestem grasses).
Today’s skies were lovely with the GOLDEN sunshine; tonight’s sunset was more than GOLDEN—it was ablaze with deep oranges and reds as the sun set nearly in the middle of the horizon—-the Fall Equinox is nearly upon us and each year I watch for that halfway sunset on Sept 21 and March 21. This side of the equinox is not nearly as much fun as the one in March—-we are getting along toward the dark days of late autumn already and I am never ready for it.
GOLDEN opportunity: a well used phrase to describe having a chance to do something special, get a really good job or just have an especially nice vacation. All of us have a lot of GOLDEN opportunites come along in our lifetimes.

The GOLDEN age of……..Elizabeth the First of England; the GOLDEN age of Greece and its ascendant culture in ancient historical times when Greeks ruled the literary, artistic, archictechural pinnacle of mankind. The GOLDEN age of Greek’s rule of the ancient world came to a sudden halt when Alexander the Great died in his early thirties leaving his empire to a group of men who did not do well at all and Greece’s empire was taken over by the Romans who began their own Empire and GOLDEN age.
But this leads to a rabbit trail…. this Greek Age of Empire. The story is that a poor couple who lived in a small Greek village had a baby boy but the child cried all the time and nearly drove his parents to distraction. One day his mother pushed his little cradle closer to the fireplace and the baby quit his crying. She did it for the next few days as a test and each time the baby was near the fireplace he ceased crying. And that child became the famous Greek leader known as Alexander the Grate. (loud groans of agony)

When European countries were exploring and seafaring and colonizing their exploits world-wide were their GOLDEN ages…..England, Portugal, Spain, Holland..they were all colonizers and sailors who circumnavigated the world
and made many amazing voyages. Truly GOLDEN times.
And then there was a man named GOLDEN Romney and I am not kidding. He was a brother to George Romney and an uncle to Mitt whom we all know now as a presidential candidate. In the 1960′s when we lived in Pullman, Washington at Washington State University, GOLDEN Romney was in the athletic department of WSU and worked as an assistant to the Athletic Director. He was a tall handsome, striking man just like his brother George, the governor of Michigan at that time. All the Romneys must be handsome men. It remains to be seen if Mitt will have a GOLDEN opportunity to the White House!!!!!

GOLDEN retrievers, Minnesota’s GOLDEN Gophers….. GOLDEN anniversaries, GOLDEN days of Senior Citizens…. little GOLDEN books for children….. “These Happy GOLDEN Years” by Laura Ingalls Wilder…..there are so many meanings for that lovely word, GOLDEN.
Any other GOLDEN things I have forgotten could be added by readers and commenters!!!!

Last night I was browsing through the archives of “Writers’ Almanac” and I found a poem titled “Fargo” on the September 9, 2011 archive date.
Here it is….and it is by John Updike, a rather well-known American writer.

FARGO

“The fertillest soil this side of the Tigris
and Euphrates”—-so the schoolchildren
of the countryside are taught of their land
flat as far as a checkerboard to the hem of the sky.
The giant sky, pale green at dusk, stays black
long after morning cow-milking time.
Wind is incessant in winter, so
that snow fall sideways,like arctic sunshine.

This land of Lutherans and sugar beets
thickens its marvelous thinness here at the edge
of a Red River whose windings alone
betray the rectilinear. Downtown,
parking space is no problem, and grain-fed health
rewards those God’s grandeur does not drive mad.
(John Updike, from “Collected Poems 1953-1993″

Alfred A. Knopf, 1993.

I wonder when and if Updike visited Fargo. It sounds like he has been here. But how does he figure parking space is no problem downtown? Was he there in the middle of the night?
He also seems to have “cow milking” slightly confused…unless there were a lot of dairy farms in the valley when he was here.
I like the line, “and grain-fed health rewards those God’s grandeur does not drive mad.”

He is obviously not a midwestern prairie and plains person like so many of us are!!!!! I would guess he is an east coaster…and olne who considers himself quite Elite!!!!
He got the winter snowfall correct—-”the snow falls sideways”.
Was he in Fargo one January? Maybe at a college lecture series?????

I think he is not a prairie or plains person at all.