Sunday, April 13th, 2003

Sunny day, weest bit cool here in Zion, where I sit in an infusion chair at the Midwestern Regional Health Center. This time around, I'm sleeping more than I'm awake and not able to enjoy the fine cuisine of this wonderful place of hope and optimism - too nauseated. My physician told me Friday that I'm to forego the four-hour extra infusion I received in January, February and March - a month's rest so the white blood cell factories in the bone marrow can recover a bit. My loving spouse and son and daughter-in-law attend me with their infinite patience and good humor - we talk a bit of this and that, of the war in Iraq and the release of the POW's - I'm the weest bit weak, kola, but not so weak that I cannot rant at yesterday's looting of the museum in Baghdad - antiquities thousands of years old destroyed and stolen while the U.S. Marines looked on. This disturbs me mightily - I understand why the troops find it difficult to serve as street police - and why they may consider dealing with looting less than a priority - preoccupied as they are with locating caches of arms and weapons and watching out for those on artifacts from the cradle of civilization that survived decades of one of the most ruthless regimes to be carted off or destroyed as the military of the most powerful nation that ever existed looks on is an outrage. We ignore it completely in our natural exuberance over the ease with which we have done in the Iraqi military, the release of the American POWs, the preservation of the oil fields - losing some of the oldest cultural artifacts in existence is a small matter.

Yesterday I joined our weekend guests at the fabulous Illinois Beach Resort on Lake Michigan in an outing to an outlet shopping mall previously scoped out by my spouse - a Saturday hour or two of people watching - lots of young women and men in navy uniforms - probably in training at the Great Lakes facility. They are so young - as some of the U.S. Marines in Iraq are - in their late teens - and most of them have no knowledge of the cultural heritage of the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and its importance to understanding from whence we humans came. In a large "outlet" bookstore - all the books were on remainder, marked down to move them - I found the handsome Harper Collins hardback of Minnesota poet Robert Bly's The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, published in 2001 - poems written in the ghazal form of classical Islamic poetry - a form which allows the poet to shift subjects and point of view from one stanza to the next, to make wonderfully wild connections. The $23.00 book was selling for $5.99 - someone should buy them up and distribute them to those young people in the military. Bly brings the oldest stories and the most storied of philosophers and poets of the past to his exquisite verse. Have a careful look at his

Moses' Cradle
The Pharaoh's wives touch the mud with their toes.
You and I float in Moses' cradle. Dear friends, you and I
Are parted by a think skin from the ignorance of the Nile.

Ghosts compose themselves from ground mist.
Friends, our souls are moist. "Dry souls are best."
Plotinus thought so, but he was nursing at eleven.

Some children hear the thin words spoken by the dead.
Men piece out secrets hidden in prime numbers.
Women report what Eternity has told them to say.

Our cradle, like Moses', is porous to the Nile.
You and I will never have one whole day of light.
At three o'clock, a wall will creak, or a hare will die.

Beauty has reached us drenched in birth blood.
As our eyes open, bright blood splashes on the floor.
The baby's descent gives us a taste for war.

Some souls remember well, climb so high
They are remembered forever. But Macbeth fell
A thousand miles when the feathers touched his face.

'Tis not easy poetry - but it speaks directly to the our touchstone with all of humanity, I think - it speaks to what Jung called the collective unconscious, that part of us that is in tune with all of human expression from the beginning of human cultural expression - from the story of Moses being discovered by Egyptian royalty and raised by them - eventually he leads his people out of bondage in Egypt - to the artifacts destroyed yesterday in Baghdad - expressions of the human spirit that had survived wars and mayhem for thousands of years.

Almost time to disconnect from the infusion unit for this day, the fifth in my current exile from Dakota, that most beauuuuuuuutiful place. Kola, I wish you calm and peace as you take the best possible care of yourselves and of each other. If you don't know the poetry of Robert Bly, a good friend of OMF, Thomas Matthew McGrath - do yourself a favor and go find some and read it aloud.

Ev Albers

Saturday, April 12th, 2003

Cooler morning on Lake Michigan, with the weest bit of wind here at the quiet Illinois State Resort in Zion. Coffee was ready when I went to search this A.M. – but the sun had already been up for more than an hour. Moreover, I'm munching on a chocolate-covered cake donut – all in all, a fine morning. The Twins finally won a game last night at Toronto, and our son and daughter-in-law finally found this clean, well-lighted place last night. April 12 – a day to remember because on this day in 1633, Galileo went on trial for his whacky idea that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system. What a trouble-maker – and there's plenty of Galileos around today as well, especially those folk of the ilk who who are less than eager to see the United States become the guardian of civilization for the world. This morning, Dr.Atkins languishes in a coma – after a fall on what was doubtlessly sheer ice. I wore out Atkins' first book about the high-protein diet – and the business of at least eight glasses of water a day – back in the summer of 1970 when I lost 73.8 pounds in seven weeks x There are no few days when I wish I were in need of something like Atkins' diet today – but other means of controlling weight are here to stay for me.

I had first tried Atkins in the summer of 1969, the year American astronauts landed on the moon. All things considered, 'twas a glorious summer – in spite of the Vietnam War, the ascent of Richard Nixon to the presidency, and social unrest that would probably result in arrests for treason were they to take place today. In April of '69, the great Dakota version of Woodstock was still in the planning stages – the great Zap-In, a descent upon the tiny Mercer County town about twenty-five miles northwest of Hannover Township. More about the Zap-In later this spring – brought in the National Guard – but no death or severe injury. A few old buildings were burned and disappointed young fold were herded down the road from Hazen to Bismarck, right through Hannover, where many of my relatives were ready to hit the ditches with deer rifles and shotguns. Fortunately, my third cousin once removed, Sheriff Gordon Albers, showed up to tell folks that it was nothing but a bunch of kids trying to find someplace to stop, and it probably wasn't going to be Hannover Township.

Among my first memories dates back to April 12, 1945, twenty-four years before that April 1969 when I was still snowed in in Devils Lake where I was teaching at what was then Lake Region Junior College. That's the day Franklin Delano Roosevelt died – and the whole of Hannover Township, my entire world when I was three years old, was in a turmoil. There was great sadness, of course – but the dominant emotion was fear that without Roosevelt, we would never finish up with Hitler or bring down the evil regime of Imperial Japan. We cried for our country, cried because we had lost our president. Spring quickly followed – as did the demise of Hitler and the subsequent jubilation throughout Hannover Township and, I suspect, the vast world beyond. But today, fifty-eight years ago, marks my awareness of belonging to something beyond my family and folks of Hannover Township.

We humans are social beings, above all us – and all of us want more than anything else to belong to something fine and good that is greater than us. Kola, I wish you the best of this fine day – and hope you find a way to help our country become the best it can be. Take care of yourselves and look out for each other.

Ev Albers

Friday, April 11th, 2003

Friday, April 11, 2003 - second day of current exile from beauuuuuuutiful Dakota, the first of five days of the fourth and final monthly round of chemo here at a Cancer Treatment Center of America in Zion, Illinois. My spouse and I arrived here early last evening - and I've been sleeping since about 8:00 P.M., with plenty of naps in between yesterday - dreamless sleep (well, more likely, unremembered dreams sleep) - I'm ready for whatever the day brings. Along the with rounds at the Midwestern Health Center, today will bring my wife's brother David and his wife Sue up from St. Louis for a visit - and later today, my son Albert and his wife Bobbi will drive down I-94 from Madison, Wisconsin. 'Tis party time, kola - sometime, somewhere in the next day or two, we'll have good food - both at the Health Center dining room and elsewhere - perhaps an outing - and great conversation. Dave Kubik retired at a tender age a couple of years ago from McDonald Douglas in St. Louis - and his wife Sue is about ready to wrap up her teaching career. Their children Jeffrey - an economist at Syracuse University - and Kerry, who helps to try to keep American Airlines in business with her skills in business administration - are a bit older than our children, but our Albert and Gretchen had great times with the St. Louis cousins when they came up to visit nearly every summer in Dickinson when Leslie and David's father, Alfons, was alive. I have great videos of the shenanigans on the Kubik lawn with the fourteen Kubik cousins.

Dave and Sue Kubik are terrific friends as well as great relatives. When our children were smaller, we went to visit them in St. Louis - a couple of days we'll never forget: a game at Busch Stadium and seeing Ozzie Smith play, a visit to Six Flags and rides with my intrepid daughter Gretchen on a roller coaster that left me much more weak-kneed and queezy than I am after a couple of days of chemo, and the fantastic hospitality of Leslie's brother Dave. Dave has more Kubik family photographs than I - we would both shoot rolls upon rolls during the summer conclaves - one of his hobbies, in addition to being a history buff and now a pretty damned good cook as well - a great change of pace for an engineer. Dave and his family are great-souled folk who have gone out of their way to help me and my family during these challenging times - 'twill be wonderful to be able to spend some time with them.

Looks like a reasonable day here in Zion, just a bit up the road from Chicago - midway between the Windy City and Milwaukee. There's still a bit of snow in corners from last week's fall, but 'tis seasonable. Our clean, well-lighted place here is right on Lake Michigan, the Illinois Beach Resort - 'tis the weest bit nippy this morning for a 5:30 A.M. walk on the beach. There's a bit of disgruntlement among a half-dozen WW II vets here for some sort of reunion or convention - the establishment promised a continental breakfast at 5:30 A.M. - but delayed it until 6:00 - the guys have been telling old stories since about 4:30, so they're the weest dry - could use a bit of coffee. So could I - for I have a bit of a hangover from all of the jelly beans I ate on the trip here yesterday. In this treatment cycle I'm in, 'tis wise to enjoy the finest things in life when one can - like coffee. I no longer have my 20-30 cups a day, of course - one or two with caffeine, and perhaps a couple of more without - another constant companion that I've lost in the past couple of months.

Still no coffee here at the "resort" - although there is an absolutely gorgeous blood-red rising over Lake Michigan. Fact of the matter 'tis, folks are pretty laid back at this place - they don't move as fast as North Dakotans. There's a great difference in tolerance for not bringing the coffee to the complimentary breakfast on time 'twict this great facility and most any place in North Dakota. Do that more than once in North Dakota, and you're out of business. Were there a half-dozen Dakotans here, there would be a rebellion - folks will wait for their food a bit, but they want their coffee on time in Dakota.

Coffee is serious business in North Dakota - and I'm not talking about Starbucks - which you can buy at a Barnes and Noble - no, I'm talking about morning coffee in the tradition of the stuff that used to be made on stove in the corner - water from the well boiled with a couple of eggs and and grounds added - - and water and grounds added as needed throughout the day and week and month. We're not talking warm water and Folger's Instant here folks. Which reminds me of old Bill Wolf back in Hannover Township, Oliver County - old Bill lived to be 90-something, I think. When instant coffee first came out, Bill used it as a supplement to the stuff on the stove - some claim that he had to use a spoon to drink his coffee, but I think that's stretching it the weest. As in many cultures, hospitality in Hannover Township was measured by the strength of the coffee served. Woe to the woman who tried to save money by serving weak coffee - seeing the bottom of the coffee cup was grounds for ostracism - or at least heavy-duty shunning.

After a single day of celebration in Iraq and the pulling down of the Saddam statue, things aren't going so well today - everything that is not nailed down and a lot that is is being looted - including hospital beds. The same Iraqi citizens that welcomed Americans as liberators yesterday are wondering today whether or not there will be a society left to liberate - and the United State military is reluctant to do anything at all, for the presence isn't great enough to provide basic civil security - nor does the military want to upset the looting citizens. Sounds like it's time for some talk over good coffee.

I have time for another half-cup - my father-in-law, Alfons always took his coffee by the half-cup - a habit his daughter, my spouse practices as well. I've yet to learn why - one of those mysteries yet to be solved. Take care of each other, kola - may you never have to see the bottom of your coffee cup and may you find a kind of half-a-cup of whatever that helps you take care of each other.

Ev Albers

Thursday, April 10th, 2003

​'Tis a sunny morning here in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, about half way down the diagonal of I-94 from the Minnesota to the Illinois border - and around 350 miles to Zion and the Midwestern Regional Health Center where kind folks are helping me keep myself alive. 'Tis the first of a week or so of exile from beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, where must already be warm enough to run around the golf course in shorts and a tank top this A.M. - around 8:00. Long drive yesterday with a stop to see my darling daughter Gretchen and Michael Moore for a bit of dinner. Our accommodations are a Hemingwayesque clean, well-lighted place - with super fans in the bathrooms wired to the overhead light - loud enough to wake anyone within a mile or so. There's coffee and juice here in this lobby where I write this morning, allowing my spouse, Leslie, who drove the 600 miles or so this morning - but no donuts, let alone a Krispy Kreme. Fortunately, I had the emergency cookies provided by my daughter.

America is riding high this April 10, 2003 - and patriotism predominates. 'Tis not a good day to voice publicly any qualms about the President's observations about what needs to be done in the wake of Iraqis taking to the streets and greeting the Americans as liberators - something the current administration said would happen all the time. I was listening on the car radio - so this is a paraphrase - something to the effect that this is a new age in which civilized nations take on responsibility for freeing the oppressed people of the world. If one would accept the rant of many radio talk shows waving the flag yesterday and last evening, 'tis tantamount to treason to question whether American tanks should be the capitals around the world tearing down the statues of dictators - do we go on to neighboring Syria and Iran from Iraq?

How long will it take to make Iraq safe for democracy, and what will be the role of Americans in running that country? Do we care what the rest of the world things about what we've done and what we're going to do in Iraq?

The enormous cost can now be dismissed as negligible in terms of buying human freedom and holding high the candle of hope for people around the world. In truth, most Americans have great problems understanding why anyone in the world should have any concern with our country's pre-emptive war against any evil regime and successfully putting an end to the terror and deprivation most Iraqis experienced for decades. In some ways, Americans are basking in the glory of being the new Romans -- the civilization with the right to bring the best of culture to the entire world.

We might consider being the weest bit less imperious - but 'tis hard to do in the wake of Iraqis pulling down statues of Saddam in the center of Baghdad - with a little help from an American tank.

'Tis hard to be humble when you're kicking ass as easily as the Americans and the British have been for about three weeks in Iraq. It's easier for us Minnesota Twins fans - my beloved Twinkies lost last evening to the New York Yankees, 2-1 - two bad pitches for home runs. I'm beginning to be the weest bit concerned - that's five in a row after winning the first three. If all goes well at Zion over the six days, perhaps my ever-indulgent, loving spouse Leslie will agree to a stop in Minneapolis on the way home to Dakota, a visit to the Metrodome to see the Twins at home, where they have yet to win this year. I really think it's my duty to have a talk with those boys - howbeit from the distance of the seats well up out behind left field. Perhaps I can turn them around. In the meantime, I do hope they find a way to avoid being swept by the Yankees - come on guys, win for us Dakotans!

Time, this glorious morning, to find a bit of breakfast - well, perhaps another cup of coffee and glass of grape juice worth of musing here in this sunny room sans donuts - and a bit more eavesdropping on conversations of these folks from Wisconsin who are much more preoccupied with the soap opera details of their families and acquaintances than they are with the what's happening in Baghdad or in the ball parks of Milwaukee and Minneapolis - a fellow just explained to his wife, "You know, Myrtle - this is the way it is. You work your ass off for forty, fifty years - scrapping to get by to put away as much as you can for your family - then your damned wife decides to leave you and your kids don't give a shit - and pretty soon they drop you in a hole and, plop, plop, plop - that's it - and no one gives a shit five days after you're gone." Myrtle tries to explain that George's legacy is in the lives he's touched - and that those three kids will come around. I don't know for sure, but I think that George is brother-in-law to one of those discussing his fate. Apparently, George is the least bit under the weather with cancer - but "they have taken care of it." "George's problem," says the woman, "has always been that he didn't know when to leave the bar - he drank too much, and you know it."

"Well," answers her husband, "he's not drinking now, is he? Hasn't been for quite a while. And he's still working his ass off and it's still going to be 'plop, plop, plop' and nobody really caring a few days later, and I'm not so sure that this isn't the way it's going to be for me too."

She rolls her eyes heavenward and assures him that he's not the kind of guy anyone could ever forget. Don't think that the guy sitting there at the table across from me in this little liquid breakfast nook (where there are no donuts) believes her. He seems pretty glum about the fate of George.

Has often been observed, kola - but seldom practiced - the first commandment of finding happiness here in the middle world - all of those variations of "Love one another as you love yourself." Look out for each other as you would look out for yourself. 'Tis far easier to take on the world's oppressed than it is to do something for our brothers-in-law like George or folks right down the street - or those living in our houses, for that matter. The morose fellow having coffee on this glorious day in Wisconsin - not a bad place to be if you can't be in Dakota - is probably right - it's work your ass off and then "plop, plop, plop" - but wrong about folks not giving a shit - they care, of course, even as we care for them - especially those close to us.

Ev Albers

Wednesday, April 9th, 2003

What a glorious day in Dakota already this early A.M., April 9, 2003, the twenty-third anniversary of the birth of my darling daughter in whom I am most pleased at all times, Gretchen Alene Albers. I don't recall the weather that day – 'twas too excited about the arrival of Gretchen, whom I held in my arms shortly after her first cry – the doctor handed her to me in a blanket after my wife's C-Section. There followed that day in the April three months of the happiest days of my life. Back then, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the funding source of the North Dakota Humanities Council, my employer of some thirty years now, made possible three month sabbaticals every three years for executive directors. I spent April-June with infant Gretchen and and her three-year-old brother, Albert. Later than summer, the revival of the Chautauqua begun in North Dakota traveled for the first time to another state – to Sheridan, Wyoming at the invitation of the Chair of the Wyoming council, Celeste Colgan, who later became the deputy director of the NEH for her friend Lynne Cheney – whose husband is the current vice-president, of course. Gretchen attended her first Chautauqua when she was about five months old – and she has not missed a summer since. She was most attentive, sitting in her stroller – listening to the likes of our friend Jerry Tweton do Teddy Roosevelt or hearing the ghost stories told by Garrison Keillor, brought in as a warm-up act for Chautauqua along with Butch Thompson. The power went out the night he performed in Sheridan, so he told ghost stories accompanied by Butch on the piano.

With the arrival of Gretchen, our family was complete – and her arrival was carefully planned by her mother, Leslie, who explained to me how important 'twas for Albert to have a sibling – in fact, three-year-old Albert was as ecstatic as were Leslie and I and grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, about Gretchen's arrival. Albert decided to grow up the weest upon his sister's arrival – 'twas about that time I think he finally decided to vacate his bowels in the traditional fashion – in a bathroom stool. From the first, he told her stories – "read" them to her (at three, recited stories he knew from memory), sat with her on my lap and fed her her bottle, and looked out for her in every way.

April 1980 was a troubled spring – two days before Gretchen was born, the U.S. broke off relations with Iran – and by the end of April, eight Americans were killed in a failed attempt to rescue the hostages held by Iran. By September, the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq began – 'twas in those years in the 1980s that we were less than concerned that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was invading Iran. Thousands and thousands were killed – including large armies of children sent to the front. What came to be known as the Iran Hostage Crisis was a major factor in Ronald Reagan defeating President Jimmy Carter in November 1980. The hostages were released on the day in January 1981 Reagan was inaugurated – after the new administration released $8 million dollars in Iranian assets in the United States.

Gretchen grew up during a time the United States turned to materialism and a preoccupation with getting and spending in earnest – and emerged a woman at the end of the twentieth century unscathed by the bombardment from all around her – including the commercials on the televisions in her schools bringing news at the cost of airing pitches. She emerged with a great library and modest wardrobe, with a compassion for any who have suffered injustice or are down and out for no good reason – and for those suffering for good reasons as well. Gretchen can type in complete, well-crafted sentences faster than I can think most days. She has read everything I've ever suggested and much more than I even know about. After graduating from the University of Minnesota-Morris with highest distinction with degrees in history and in English in May 2002, she has been working in the Glenwood/Alexandria, Minnesota area and preparing to enter graduate school this fall in history -- she wants to be a public historian.

Ah, kola – you must indulge what may seem to be parental excess in me on this, my daughter's birthday – but many of you know that the relationship between a father and his daughter(s) comes as close as we may ever know in the middle world to the unqualified, totally undeserved love Christianity holds that God has for humankind. 'Tis not necessarily greater than other family relationships and the love shared by wife and husband, mother and daughter, son and father, or between siblings – but 'tis marked by the daughter being able to forgive shortcomings and an incredible nurturing instinct – a penchant for wanting to take care of her dad. What my darling daughter brings to my life every day is grace incarnate – and once a human has experienced grace, she/he is never the same – 'tis the self-affirming gift of saying "You are very important in my life, someone I love because you are you, not because of what you have or haven't done!"

From her mother, Gretchen inherited a rather distinctive need for order on her terms, a work ethic, and finding a way to put her creative energy to use in service of the greater community. In her early primary grades, Gretchen decided that she would establish a cleaning service for the condo association – and she did so. She also inaugurated and sustained a weekly publication, The Teddy Bear Scroll -- news of the neighborhood, short essays about the way the world ought to be, and the weest bit of humor.

At times, our darling daughter's charm and eagerness to entertain the family came close to being a bit irksome – especially the high-pitched screeching renditions of Christmas carols she sang in the character of her "Teddy," a furless barely-still-stuffed animal – a dog, actually – given to her by her Grandmother Dorothy as a baby. Blessed with a fine, sweet voice, Gretchen can send cats scurrying and family and friends cringing when she starts screeching as Teddy. On long trips, Gretchen often took it upon herself to name all of the horses we saw – something that became a great challenge on a road trip to Sundance, Idaho through Montana. Sweet little Gretchen was reaching down the weest atimes – and a few unfortunate nags became Shitty and Poopy after all the great names had been used.

Fröliche Geburtstag, Tochter! I hope all the customers at that great coffee house you manage in Glenwood – Stellabellas – treat you as the special person you are today – can't wait to see you this afternoon.

OMF (Our Mutual Friend) Thomas Matthew McGrath wrote a poem addressed to his son, Tomasito . . . "You Taught Me":

All those years, alone,
Married to the intense uninteresting life . . .
And, until you came, Tomasito,
I didn't even know my name.

I understood that poem when our son Albert came in March 1977 – Albert taught me what it means to have a child look to you for life itself and far beyond, for help in sorting out what life means – and Gretchen did the same, of course – yet my children continue to teach me different things, both essential to the will to take on the challenges of each new day as long as I possibly can – my son teaches me humility even as I burst with pride as he takes what little I have taught him to new understandings I have only glimpsed. My daughter teaches me, above all us, how to accept grace, something that has been showered upon me since I've learned of this deadly invader – in fact, my daughter has helped me accept gifts from my spouse, her mother -- attention and doing things for me I would rather suffer mightily doing for myself.

Perhaps there will be a day of judgment coming ala the ilk of St. Peter demanding to know what I've done to deserve entrance to Paradise – and 'tis at least a working metaphor for the essential question that will be asked about us all when folks remember us – or consider whether or not our lives are worth remembering. My only answer 'twill be I tried as best I could to be a father who deserved the love of our children Albert and Gretchen, someone who continues to be there with their mother as they continue their quest to be the best they can.

I hope the definition of "the best" centers on taking care of themselves – as I hope all you, kola, are doing – and even more important, I would hope my legacy to my children is knowledge certain that we are less than complete human beings unless we find a way to take care of others -–our families and friends – but those whom we do not know, as well. We don't do very well at taking care of each other as members of a large social compact – as Americans, for example. Fact is, we couldn't or wouldn't do a damn thing about the tens of thousands who died in the Iran-Iraq War which began the month my daughter was born. The killing went on through President Reagan's two terms of office. And not a damn thing was done about the thousands who were killed by Saddam Hussein's regime following our declaration of victory and pull-out of Iraq following the short Gulf War a dozen years ago. Killing isn't going to stop in April 2003, even if we produce proof that Saddam is dead – for there are no few folk around the world who don't particularly admire Americans and their material wealth. Methinks our salvation lies with the Gretchen's of this generation, the young women and those few good young men who dare question the motives and values of the nation they would serve and make better, the young people who study history and use it for more than a convenient touchstone to bolster self-satisfied conviction that their country has to be right because, after all, it's the richest and mightiest – 'tain't no one can take us on. We will find our way back as welcome members of the world community when we reach out in genuine humility, minds open to options other than those American leadership has decided the way it has to be.

At the tender age of twenty-three, Gretchen has wisdom many three times her age will never possess – she's not someone who conveniently forgets our history every fifteen minutes.

Well, 'tis time for the morning paper – perhaps a cup of coffee – the next-to-the-last 500mg of Cipro, the antibiotic which makes me sleepy and the weest nauseated – I've already consumed the piece of cherry cheesecake at 3:00 this morning – now what? Think I'll postpone further pastry delights – Gretchen will have something at Stellabellas. Kola, I hope 'tis as beauuuuuuuuuuuuutiful wherever you are as it is today in Dakota, which I'll must reluctant leave in a few hours for more than a week – my exile made bearable by visits with my children -

Ev Albers

Tuesday, April 8th, 2003

What a beauuuuuuutiful day lies ahead for us here in glorious Dakota, where 'twill be sunny and warm once more, as 'twas yesterday. Winter has come back to the East – but 'tis spring here, kola, truly 'tis. Moreover, this is no fluke – happens all the time. It's rarely Dakota that gets the untimely blast of bad weather, contrary to our reputation. Some say we Dakotans themselves contribute to the big lie – that this is less than the Garden of Eden in terms of weather and climate – either because some of us really don't want more folks here or because we would take pride in being hardy folk who can take on anything Mother Nature offers. Others would have folks streaming into our place to help pay the bills. A few think that our reputation for being the weest on the cold and snowy side stems from the North in the state's name – and they would like to drop it.

Fact of the matter is, folks who come here to visit love the place – even those who come in the dead of winter, which has been pretty balmy for the last five years or so – so balmy, I've been the weest bit disappointed.

April 8 is the day in 1935, Congress approved Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, the WPA – a core program of the New Deal that offered jobs and hope to millions, including thousands of North Dakotans. North Dakota was, in fact, the hardest-hit of all the states by the Great Depression, and the New Deal kept a few thousand folks here to hold on to the place for better times. Among the projects of the WPA -- in addition to keeping art and literature alive in the nation with writers' and artists' programs – was one that set about to record the stories of all the original homesteaders, the earliest residents. North Dakota took to this project big time – employing teachers and others who were either not employed or working for nothing but scraps of paper which promised to pay them – vouchers – the project gathered more than 5,000 stories in North Dakota, perhaps the greatest per capita participation in the nation. All these are stored, sorted by name and county, at our great facility, the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

What stories there are! My good friend and mentor D. Jerome Tweton – Jerry – set about collecting the best of them more than a dozen years ago, and he brought me into the project to help put fifteen or so of the stories into individual books in a series he titled The Way It Was: The North Dakota Frontier Experience. We're working on the sixth and final in the series, The Townspeople now. Each book stands on its own -- The Sod-Busters, Norwegian Homesteaders, The Cowboys and Ranchers, German from Russia Settlers, and Native People.

There's a story or two of a blizzard or tornado remembered by those who came to the state in the 1870s, 80s and 90s – and, in the case of The Native People, some who were over hundred years old when they were interviewed in the late 1930s – but many more boast of the good times and of being able to survive the bad – which were most often times of too-little rain in this place on the edge of what was called through much of the nineteenth century The Great America Desert.

In terms of climate and geology, North Dakota is many different places. Across the Missouri where paradise begins a few miles from my home here, 'tis pretty damned dry – desert dry in some years. The place where I grew up in Hannover Township, Oliver County, was such a place – my great grand-father came during a wet cycle in the 1880s and managed to survive the dry one that followed in the early 1890s – he lived long enough to know the next one was coming. Many in my father and mother's generation, young men and women in their twenties during the Great Depression, were able to stay on in their beloved Dakota only because of Roosevelt's programs. Roosevelt became so loved for what folks perceived he did that the state even voted for him for president a couple of times – one of the few Democrats who ever carried the state. Some of my uncles and my father as well for a short time worked at building roads with equipment often drawn by horses. Uncle Elmer told me about a job he had shooting pigs and cows and burying them – they were underfed – and they were in surplus on the Great Plains – I never could understand that policy given the bread lines and soup kitchens in the cities. My father's youngest brother, Roy, joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC.

By the time I came along in 1942, the good times were rolling – both a wet cycle and the golden years of North Dakota agriculture, due in no small part to the demand because of World War II. Most of my pre-adolescent years were wet ones that brought Aprils of melting snows – snow that reached the top of our farmhouse and was piled so deep in the farmyard that we had tunneled between house and barn. The road disappeared into a lake, watered covered the farmyard. Cautioned over and over not to venture into those areas where the water rose above the top of my four-bucklers, I did it again and again – the worst of repeat offenders who returned from a foray into the new lake country with wet shoes and socks – patiently dried out by my indulgent mother. 'Twas a time of great optimism, those wet springs in what some called "Next Year Country" – wait until next year for enough rain and a crop. My father would be itching to get into the fields – but 'twas too wet to plow. Robins' nests with those pale blue eggs appeared at the edge of the water, then crocus – and those glorious days of 50 and even 60 plus degrees with warm south winds – ah 'twas glorious, beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful days in Dakota, kola!

Around Easter time many of those years, Uncle Roy and family would arrive in a big station wagon from Wahpeton, down in the southeastern corner of the state where folks complained often about too much rain and snow. Uncle Roy was a salesman – one of the great ones. He was the only one of the brothers in my father's family who went to high school. He married the effervescent Gladys, a Norwegian-American from parts north of Hannover Township. He and Gladys would arrive with children five – Don, who was my age; Lynn, who was about the age of my sister Fayette; David; Paul; and Faith. Oh, what wondrous mayhem prevailed for a few days! Uncle Roy always brought Easter baskets for each of us – my brother Jim, I, and sisters Fayette and Linda. They would arrive through a circuitous route through fields, bypassing the flooded road. We didn't have the kind of phone service that anyone would think of using to call ahead – long distance through an operator in Center, six miles away – was for emergencies only. So we never knew for sure whether or not they were coming or exactly when – but we always had high hopes around Easter time. As soon as they arrived, I and my siblings would start our Easter sugar high – all those great jelly beans in the green confetti grass around a least one big piece of chocolate – a bunny or chicken, usually – and sometimes individually-wrapped smaller pieces of chocolate. To this day, I love jelly beans – in fact, 'tis a test of the approaching nadir following chemo treatment when I can't down a jelly bean – or, worse, even want one. My loving spouse has provided a cache for me to take to the office later today – love those jelly beans!

No matter what the time of arrival – most often late afternoon – my mother Hulda, much beloved by all kith and kin for her breakfast cuisine, would put the big black frying pan on the stove – two or three when Uncle Roy and family arrived – and begin cooking breakfast – first the "side pork," those thick slices of cured pork, more speck than meat, and heavily salted. When the side pork was reduced to nearly-burned crispness and the smell permeated house, Roy and family would begin to hover in the tiny kitchen and then crowd around the formica 50s table – and watch in awe as my mother dropped a quarter-pound of Hannover sweet cream butter into the pans of browner-than-brown side pork juice and then fry dozens of eggs in a pan so hot that the whites fried to a deep, nearly-black crisp and the yolks remained fluid – yet hot. Into these eggs, our guests dipped toasted homemade bread lavished with butter and homemade jelly, washed down with skim milk and/or coffee strong enough to stand a spoon in. Kola, I can't remember ever hearing as much laughter or as many sighs of animal contentment as those that came from that tiny kitchen on April days when Uncle Roy and family came to visit.

Aunt Gladys and several of the children live down in Florida now – she still calls my 90-year-old Mom and visits, and I've had warm letters from my cousins. My Uncle Roy left the middle world some years ago at the too-young age of 62 – he suffered a stroke while driving home to Minneapolis where the family later moved. My cousin Don, a mathematician, now lives in the D.C. area – I hope to maybe see him my next trip East in June. In fact, my first foray far beyond Hannover Township – other than the occasional trips to Bismarck – was a train ride to Wahpeton to spend a week with Don and Uncle Roy's family.

I'll not forget those April – sometimes late March – but especially those April visits – the year that Uncle Roy showed us that he did indeed have six toes on one of his feet – I don't remember which one. I remember Aunt Gladys talking fifty miles an hour; the two younger children running delightfully wild, often sans diapers; visiting with Don about the ways of the big city and city schools; and the ever-chuckling Uncle Roy. During their stay, our house would be filled with as many as twenty extra folk as my father's family who lived near Hannover Township came to see them.

April – early April, especially April 8 – a time of optimism, hope, and high expectation. Tomorrow my spouse and I set forth one more time for Zion, and what is to be the final chemo cycle of four for me in an attempt to keep the cancerous tumor on my pancreas from doing me in – once more into the breach, with expectation that following the weest bit of discomfort for a week in a week or so, I can get on with laughing, loving, and working in earnest for a good while. Special day tomorrow – as was this day, the 8th of April in 1980, when Leslie and I eagerly awaited the arrival of our daughter, Gretchen Alene. Born by C-Section on April 9, Gretchen was handed to me by the doctor in the waiting room – and my life was changed forever, as it was when my son was born. On this day, the day before her birth, 'twas I who was trying to assure my wife that all would be well, that her enormous pain would be worth it – and she gave the greatest of gifts once more, a glorious Dakota child. In my happiness, I misspelled Gretchen's middle name, which I had intended to be the German Alena -–and my wife had deferred to what she thought was reasonable knowledge of German names. Gretchen loves being an "Alene," and that's all that counts – but I have been reminded from time to time by my spouse of my little mistake.

'Tis time – around 4:00 A.M. – for the weest bit of a nap for me, kola – and then a dozen-or-so-maybe-a-few-more-jelly-bean day at the office, getting publicity ready for Chautauqua programs in June and July and preparing to be in exile from Dakota for a few days – days that will be highlighted with a visit with darling daughter Gretchen on her birthday in Glenwood, Minnesota, and later with son Albert and his spouse Bobbi in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm in the Uncle-Roys-Coming-at-Easter kind of mood, this beauuuuuuutiful day in Dakota – already cheered an hour or two ago this morning with a slice of sour-cream raisin pie that went down silky smooth.

I wish you well this fine day, kola. May it be a Uncle-Roys-Coming-for-Easter kind of day for you as you take care of yourselves and look out for each other – have a jelly bean or ten and think of me kindly, please --

Ev Albers

Monday, April 7th, 2003

The great goddesses of Serendip must have conspired to make April 7 a good day for rare poetic souls to be born every 145 years or so – 'twas in 1770 that William Wordsworth entered the middle world – the great jazz singer Billie Holiday came along in 1915. 'Tis hard not to think of Wordsworth and his "world too much with us" after a couple of days of working on taxes for my wife and myself – and for my darling daughter, Gretchen. Nothing spoils absolutely beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota days quicker than doing taxes – well, maybe death comes close, but I'm not so sure about that. It's not the paying that troublesome – it's what the taxes are paying for – and not paying for, especially during these difficult times in Dakota when there's not enough to go around for the essentials – educating our young and taking care of our seniors. It's pretty obvious that we should be paying more to take care of business, especially to take care of the essentials of civilized social compact, here in Dakota, but raising taxes, except those on tobacco and liquor, are really not on the table – well, there's a chance of charging more to register vehicles in order to qualify for more federal money for our highways. There's no time of the year than the days before April 15 in American when we are more aware of materialism run rampant – nothing calls attention to the basic measure of success in our culture than the amount listed on our income tax forms. I've been using great computer tax software for years – 'tis a marvelous invention. Of late, the software has a feature which allows comparison of the source of one's income with the national average. 'Tis illuminating -- but not particularly satisfying in terms of feeling good about our society – to note the extraordinarily high percentage of personal income that comes from interest, dividends and investment, not work, in the brackets beyond the those barely beyond poverty level. I’m no economist – nor am I even a reasonable accountant without a lot of help from computer software, but I strongly suspect that money does not grow on trees, nor does it simply make more money without doing one of two things – tapping natural resources, many of which are unrenewable; or profiting from the physical labor, creative genius, and productivity in all forms of human beings in excess of what they are "paid" for their work. In short, some of us in our capitalistic society enjoy material well-being at the expense of either our common weal – natural resources – or because of the contribution of many who work to contribute to what is really a kind of pyramid scheme.

Too much time spent thinking and worrying about money around this time of the year could be soul-scabbing, spirit-crushing despondency of the ilk Wordsworth describes in his

The World is too much with us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

I'm reminded of the third-from-last poem in OMF (Our Mutual Friend) Tom McGrath's last collection of poetry – one he titled:

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT with the dedication for Tomasito

Son,
Forgive me:
When you were little,
I made some money,
Once,
And saved it
For what they call
Your "future"
And,
Alas,
I did it without
Robbing a bank.

Forgive me, son,
(And all other children) that,
One time,
I made an agreement with
The enemy.

'Tis time, kola, for a bit of Billie Holiday on this glorious Dakota day – she died far too young (age 44), but while she lived, she laughed and sang and gave us great music. Billie once said, "I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music." 'Tain't music, friends, kola, to spend too much time doing the same old thing – hope this great day brings you something new – may Proteus rise from the sea for you this day as you take care of yourselves and look out for each other. Sing your favorite song a different way today, kola . . .

Ev Albers

Sunday, April 6th, 2003

Greetings, salutations, and the best of wishes from beauuuuuuutiful Dakota this fine Sunday morn where 'tis an hour later today by the clock than it 'twas a mere twenty-four hours ago - we've sprung ahead so it's not so early when we greet the sun, and there's time left after work to play in the yard before the sun goes down. Back a some years ago in Hannover Township, Oliver County, and beyond in the environs of Mercer and Dunn Counties and even northern Stark - well, parts of Morton as well, and there may be more - back a while, the idea of seasonal shifts of time outraged no few folks - damned near fomented rebellions at times. One dairy farmer wrote impassioned letters to the editor, to his congressional delegation, and spoke at length with anyone who would listen about how the time change ruined his dairy herd - they simply could take getting milked an hour earlier. There were also accusations of the government stealing an hour of people's lives as well as making their livestock miserable. Folks around Hannover sort of got used to it in the last couple of decades - when I was growing up, there was no problem - no Daylight Savings Time. Curiously, the time change in Dakota followed the Missouri River - so although it changed from Central to Mountain Time at Mandan, it remained Central until the Montana border north of the Missouri, which runs west through most of the state - in fact, it takes a quick 90 degree turn to the west on the northeastern corner of Oliver County whose border rounds with the river. So, Williston and points north in the northwestern corner of the state are an hour ahead of Mandan, about 180 miles to the southeast. The railroad did it, of course - Mandan was an easy place to change crews and time on the Northern Pacific. Living so close to another time zone - and as energy development began in Oliver County bringing workers who lived across the river, people began to keep two sets of time, fast time and slow time. When making appointments, one had to ask - is that fast time or slow time? Both times had their fervent advocates for many different reasons - among them a belief among a few that time was ordained by God and should not be messed with - to the more understandable concerns of some parents whose children would be riding to school in the dark some mornings only to have more sunlight when they got home.

There is, of course, fast time and slow time that have nothing to do with Daylight Savings Time --we all know that an hour can feel like a couple of minutes or drag out as though a day had passed. My druthers, kola, for obvious reasons among others, is for slow time . . . let the minutes stretch into eternity. Obviously, given my heightened awareness of my mortality, I would have each hour last as long as possible. Beyond that, I would wring more from an hour than I once did - but, as I'm sure you know from personal experience, the more you work with focused attention, the faster time goes, the more quickly the hour passes. 'Tis a conundrum.

My kola Jeanne Jones Manzer of South Dakota sent me a great collection of ten poems and commentary by Roger Housden last week -titled Ten Poems to Change Your Life, the collection features an extensive chatty essay about each of the poems, which include many of my favorites along with some I had never read - from Rumi to Walt Whitman, from Kabir to Pablo Neruda. It's a very personal book of reflection - made totally accessible, and fraught with hints of essential shared common interest - all in language remarkably free of jargon euphemism. Speaking of euphemism - Jeanne also passed along yesterday a new phrase being bandied during the current war in Iraq - incestuous amplification. Now here's one the weest bit tougher to understand that the "degradation of the Republic Guard" (we killed a bunch of them) and other military euphemisms for dispatching Iraqis to a place beyond the middle world, killing them. Turns out that "incestuous amplification" is a description of how the Bush administration and the military and their counterparts in Great Britain seek and take advice about the current war -- "a condition in warfare where one only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs & creating a situation ripe for miscalculation," according to Jane's Defense Weekly out of Great Britain.

Another good kola, Media Mike Hazard, whose Tom-terrific Movie at the End of the World will be aired on May Day at 9:00 P.M. on Prairie Public Television - the perfect time for you to watch and tape the documentary about Thomas Matthew McGrath - Media Mike suggested that I well may be a placist -- another new word. He hastened to say he thought I was a placist in a good way. I don't really know what that means - I assume "placist" is used to describe those who, in the fashion of racists, are blindly prejudiced for a particular place over all others and wont to suggest those places other than their own are less than what a place should be. There's little I can do to help the fact that Dakota is, indeed, much more beauuuuuuutiful than the rest of the world - and anyone who spends the weest bit of time here either wholeheartedly agrees or suffers from incestuous amplification - they can only listen and appreciate views that support their misguided perception.

But I digress from this great slim book of ten poems and commentary sent along by kola Manzer - 'tis wonderful. For the most part, Housden selects those poems that do what only great poetry and art can accomplish - help us peal back the layers of masks we have put on to hide ourselves from the rest of the world - for all the reasons we know too well: fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of disappointment, fear of unrequited love. Among those Housden discusses is by Derek Walcot, the Nobel Prize winner of 1992. It's an usually short poem without many allusions:

The time will come
When, with elation
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror

And say, sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread.
Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you

All your life, whom you ignored,
For another, who knows you by heart,
Take down the letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Housden's book is a 2001 Harmony Books publication, one that has given me many a hour of slow time enjoyment. Thank you Jeanne, for passing it along to me and to our mutual kola.

I've set the clocks ahead. Time now, methinks, for return to bed for the weest bit of semiconscious meandering - a little interior gossip and chat of this and that before getting up in earnest to the morning paper and details of how my beloved Minnesota Twins could possibly have lost 4-3 in the bottom of the nineth - must have been, because Eddie Guardado, old Everyday Eddie, the closer, lost the game! I knew I should have gone to bed with my Twins shirt on - looked what happened! Either they win today or they will have been swept by Toronto in their home opener - not good, kola, not good!

I trust you are feeling well enough, kola, on this fine April day - and that's 'tis as beauuuuuutful in your place as 'its in mine (see, I'm trying to rise above my placism). And may your life today be amplified by words and/or music you had never thought of before - or brought back by your real self that you have been hiding from - and may this spring experience pass in slow time with laughter and joy and set about helping others take care of themselves.

Ev Albers

Saturday, March 5th, 2003

Of course, it's a beauuuuuuutiful day in Dakota. Couldn't be better, in fact . . . cool, calm --and mighty quiet here in east Bismarck, not far from the Missouri River. 'Tis April 5 - the birthday of such famous Hollywood stars as Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, Gregory Peck, and Melvyn Douglas - and many other notables of the ilk of Thomas Hobbes (1588), Booker T. Washington (1856), and the current U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, born on this day in 1937. Powell's talking this morning about how 'tis going to be in Iraq after we win the war - U.S. troops are in Baghdad today - which still is a beautiful city - 'twill be the weest bit warm there - about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Today our nation's Surgeon General issued a statement saying that war and terrorism are not good for our mental health. Well, as Gomer Pyle was wont to say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise!" The front page of the Bismarck Tribune features Vietnam vets talking about how the young people over in Iraq are going to be "old men in young bodies" when they come back - warning of all of the problems of post-war syndrome, including not being able to forget participating in death and destruction. "Surprise, surprise, surprise!" 'Twas Colin Powell who once observed, "Bad news isn't wine. It doesn't improve with age." Our mental health and that of our men and women in uniform who are in Iraq now and the thousands who will have to go to "keep the peace" isn't going to improve in the months to come - unless, of course, we find a way to laugh and love in spite of the shit storm we find ourselves in as Americans taking on responsibility for saving civilization.

On this day in April in years past, no few good women and men breathed their last - April 5 must be among the days fate has decreed those best to pass from this middle world. Howard Hughes' billions of dollars were left behind when he went on in 1976 at the age of 70 and a few months - the eccentric recluse, creator of the Spruce Goose, was not a particularly jocular fellow, but he did have the weest bit of wit - supposedly, he once said of Robert Mitchum, the actor, "You're like a pay toilet, aren't you? You don't give a shit for nothing." I have no idea whatsoever why Hughes would find Mitchum less than engaged in society - but Chaing Kai-Shek certainly left his mark before he died on this day the year before Hughes, 1975 - Kai-Shek was in his late 80s, and he must have remembered thousands upon thousands of dead bodies as he lay dying. No stranger to war and death, a general like Kai-Shek, Douglas MacArthur died on this day in 1964 at age 84. MacArthur claimed that his secret to getting on with life was to believe that he was immortal: "I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul." I find little to disagree with that - understated though it be. Giving up not only wrinkles the soul - it will shrink it and scab it as well.

Our salvation, kola, is, indeed, in giving a shit --not only for ourselves, and not only for our family and kin, but for all fellow travelers in this middle world, and that's hard to do, especially when we find ourselves citizens of the Republican Guard For Civilization in the Twenty-First Century. This morning in an extraordinary moment of Jungian synchronicity - a moment meaningful coincidence that transcends time and space - I opened Naomi Shihab Nye's 19 Varieties of Gazelle, that exquisite book of verse by the gifted Arab American poet about life in the Middle East, to her poem, "Those Whom We Do Not Know." I had been thinking about North Dakota's own Thomas Matthew McGrath and his respect for Pablo Neruda - in fact, I had been reading McGrath's "Lament for Pablo Neruda" and the lines
There are vertical streets in Chile that end in the mankilling sea.
Up there the salt is climbing like a mineral snake on the stairs
Made from the bones of dead men. There are dead men too in the plaza, 
Under the salt of the moon where traitorous generals sit
Sipping the wine of silence and crossing out names on a page. . . . 

This morning in Iraq our troops found a mortuary with hundreds of corpses - many in unsealed cardboard boxes. About sixty Americans have died in the past sixteen days in Iraq - we know all their names. The names of the hundreds - perhaps thousands - of Iraqi dead have no names that we recognize - many, of course, have been murdered by the regime that we would wipe out. Naomi Shihab Nye has a soul unscabbed - a soul that embraces all of humankind - and she invokes Pablo Neruda in preface to her poem, "Those Who Do Not Know":

Begin Neruda Quoted by Nye
To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know . . . is something still greater and more beautiful . . .
End Neruda Quoted by Ney

How curiously serendipitous things happen sometimes! My good friend Anita May, who, like I, serves as an executive director of one of the state partners of the National Endowment for the Humanities - she in Oklahoma, I in North Dakota - my friend Anita sent me Naomi's collection of poetry Words Under Words shortly after I was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer last fall - my introduction to the fresh, unpretentious young poetic voice from San Antonio, Texas. A former student, Robyn Neal of Florida, read of my praise of her work and sent me a copy of 19 Varieties of Gazelle. My friend Jim Lund, who summers at Detroit Lakes and winters in San Antonio, read of my praise and went to a reading by Naomi and had her sign a copy of Varieties for me. The other day, Edie Manza, the indefatigable servant of all state humanities councils at the National Endowment for the Humanities told Naomi about my journal, and Naomi posted a wonderful note of encouragement in my guest book yesterday, telling me she is "holding" me "in my heart in the light of health and strength, wishing you so well." Since Anita introduced me to Naomi's verse, I wager there are hundreds who have found soul food in her words, the answer to McGrath's question, "You out there, so secret? What makes you think you're alone?" Here's Naomi's poem, "Those Whom We Do Not Know"

1.
Because our country has entered
into war, we can have
no pleasant pauses anymore--

instead, the nervous turning
one side to another, 
each corner crowded by the far
but utterly particular
voices of the dead, 

trees, fish, children, 
calling, calling, 
wearing the colorful plastic shoes
so beloved in the Middle East, 
bleeding from the skull, 
the sweet hollow along the neck, 

I forget why it's been changed. 
For whatever it was
we will crush the vendor
who stacked sesame rings
on a tray
inside the steady gaze
of stones. 
He will lose his balance
after years of perfect balance. 

Catch him! Inside every sleep
he keeps falling. 

2.
I support all people on earth
who have bodies like and unlike my body, 
skin and moles and old scars, 
secret and public hair, 
crooked toes. I support
those who have done nothing large, 
sifter of lentils, sifter of wisdoms, 
speak. If we have killed no one
in the name of anything bad or good, 
may light feed our leafiest veins. 

I support clothes in the wash-kettle, 
a woman stirring and stirring
with stick, paddle, soaking our grime, 
simple clothes the size of bodies
pinned to the sky. 

3.
What we learned left us. 
None of it held. 

Now the words ignite
Slogans knot around necks
till faces bulge. 

Windows of sand, doorways, 
sense of shifting
each time you blink--

that dune? Used to be
a house. And the desert
soaking up echoes--

those whom we did not know
think they know us now. 

Kola, I urge you to read Naomi often during these troubling times - she speaks from the soul to the soul in the universal language of the way we know it ought to be - Neruda' way. I've written of her gift several times here - check out the entry for 12/07/02, for example. Be well, kola - take care of yourselves, look out for each other, and remember, "each other" includes all of us alive, loving, and looking for joyful laughter this glorious April day. 

Ev Albers

Friday, March 4th, 2003

Something of a brisk April day here in beauuuuuuutiful Dakota, where yesterday the weest bit of snow fell about a hundred miles north of here in Bismarck on the Missouri – enough snow with some freezing rain to close things down for a day of reflection, meditation, and general frivolity. Here in Bismarck where we huddle on the edge of paradise which lies west across the river, 'twas slippery enough – "Sheer Ice!" as my lovin' spouse so often remains me – "Everett, watch it, it's SHEER ICE! out there." Reminds me of an April morning out in Hannover Township, Oliver County – back in the late 50s, must have been. I was working with my fourth cousin Hank Albers at the Hannover Store – Hank's great-grandfather and mine were first cousins who came from Illinois in the 1880s to live in paradise – they, along with my great grandfather Henry's brother are responsible for the hundreds – probably thousands – of Albers who trace their roots to the general area around Hannover Township. Fact is, my great grandfather ran the first store about a quarter-mile west of the present site of Hannover on the farmstead where my father grew up. In the 1950s, it's where Dad's Aunt Emmy lived with her hubby George Perry – the old Henry Albers homestead. About this time of the year, George would be getting the itch to go fishing – if the ice had broken up on the much mightier Missouri, because it wasn't dammed – and damned became of the dams, some say – as 'tis now. Usually 'twas not the best of time to go fishing, with all of those big chunks of ice coming down along with dead cows and horses and whatever else – most years the Missouri would flood Bismarck-Mandan – but these are other stories. I never went fishing with Uncle George in April – but I do seem to remember him driving north in that old Plymouth with the cane poles strapped on the side, headed for the Missouri in hopes of getting some really fresh fish. George cut grass along the highways for the county or state when there was grass to be cut – don't remember what he did in the winter. He was a wonderfully curious fellow – not related to any of the German families in Hannover Township, as far as I know. George was always finding stuff along the highway – stuff that fell off trucks or whatever. Once he found a set of professional running back football pads in an unmarked bag. Where a football team with that kind of equipment was traveling to on the road from New Salem to Hannover no one could guess – but 'twas quite the find. Uncle George gave the bag to me I became I was on the Center Wildcat team that I quarterbacked and played defense as middle linebacker for a couple of years. We didn't win any games in the falls of 57, 58, or 59 – but we tied one game. I sported the sleekest pads of any player on my team or those we faced, I'll tell you that. As to our record – well, football – 'twas the nine-man variety – was new to Center. We didn't exactly subscribe to the Vince Limbardi approach – winning wasn't everything. Neither was learning basic plays – our huddles took so damned long because no one knew what the hell they were supposed to be doing on any given play. But we were hell on defense.

Sorry, kola, I seem to have digressed the weest from that day back in '58 or '59 in Hannover in April, the day it was sheer ice! Hannover back then still centered on the cooperative creamery where we and dozens of other farmers sold sweet cream – which was made into sweet-cream, triple A butter that shipped to the cities of the east – both as Hannover Sweet Cream Butter and later as a Land of Lakes product in a one-pound box featuring a most attractive young Indian woman. When you sell sweet cream, you have to sell it sweet, which means you can't let it sit around the barn for more than a day or so – you have to haul it to the creamery, sheer ice or not. Many folks had problems that morning – even the few who still brought in their cream with horse and sleigh, cause, 'twas, indeed, sheer ice. After they dropped off the kids at school and the cream at the creamery, the guys would head across the road to the store where I was helping Hank hold down the fort while his parents were away for a day or two. 'Twas quite a circus – pickups and trucks and a few cars spun around on the sheer ice of the lot in front of the store – except for those that sported chains like those you see on semi-trucks on Rocky Mountain passes – everyone carried a set of chains, just in case. There was the weest bit of wind that April morning out of the northwest – the creamery was across from the store to the south. I'll never forget the sight of Louis Henke, the skinniest man I've ever seen – he was not a young man back in the 50s, trying to walk from the creamery over to the store – he'd take a step or two forward and then be blown back – not only back, but back and then down flat on his ass a half dozen times. Louis persisted – there's no stick-to-itness like a Hannover Township German American who's made up his mind to cross the road from the creamery to the store. The dozen or so men gathered at the store that morning made no effort to help old Louis – they knew the code. This was no barn raising or helping a neighbor who gets sick during harvest – there are times when you simply go help and others when you let a man either make it or fall on his ass trying. 'Twould have been the worst of insults had any of us gone out there and taken old Louis' arm. He made it into the general store – to be greeted warmly as though he had not just come from a most arduous journey across that road. Louis returned the greetings with a look of despondency and anguish I've seldom seen come over any human, let alone the ilk of the even-keeled Louis – and his despair prompted several of the Bornemanns, Albers, Oestrichs and Henkes gathered at the store that morning to ask if he were well -–"Was gibt's, Louis?" _-- "What's going on Louis?" several asked. Louis looked back across that lot and road of sheer ice at his old car in front of the creamery and then slowly went out to retrace his steps across the sheer ice, a journey that had taken him a half-hour. As he started skating with the wind back to the creamery, he yelled, "I forgot to bring the eggs." Louis had brought in the eggs to trade for groceries – and he was determined to complete his morning mission.

I don't remember Louis' trip back across the road because we were all distracted by the arrival of my mother's uncle, my great-uncle, Slim Bill Henke. In any given year, there could be as many as a dozen Williams in the Henke clan, or a dozen Henrys (Heinrich, Heiny for short) among the Albers – folks came to Hannover Township in the 1880s with a few good names that had served their families for generations, and they saw little reason to use new ones. As a result, most folks had some sort of qualifier or nickname to their regular name – or one Heinrich might be H.E. – always referred to by only his initials – while another might be Heiny and a third Heiny W. – etc. We were making distinctions like George Herbert Walker Bush and George W Bush a hundred years ago in Hannover Township.

Uncle Slim Bill Henke arrived in his car, chains on his tire, and drove right up to the to the store without swerving. Uncle Slim Bill was called Slim because he was anything but, of course – he had downed more than his share of sweet cream butter on most everything he ate – usually double portions – five times a day. A bit of sheer ice didn't daunt Slim Bill, I can tell you that. We saw him emerge from the side of his car with the end of a medium-sized log chain in each hand – he had wrapped the chains around his four-buckled overshoes, and Slim Bill had traction. Hell, he didn't even have to lean into the considerable wind to walk right into the store. No one said a word about Slim Bill's chains -–he unwrapped them and set them in the corner to go about his business – a little visiting. A thrifty man, Slim Bill tried to bargain for a better price for his eggs – after all, he was dealing with a couple of young guys – he doubtlessly could have gotten whatever he wanted from me, but Hank Albers – must have been sixteen at time – was a shrewd businessman that not even Slim Bill could get a little more than usual from. I remember the family story of the courting days of Slim Bill – when he took Aunt Martha to the Old Settler's festivities in Center. He brought a few nickels with him – for decades, pop, ice cream, and some candy cost a nickel. He and Martha walked around for a good while – until Slim broke down and bought ice cream. He was licking it slowly, and he looked lovingly at Martha and said, "Martha, this ice cream is really good. You should buy yourself one!"

Slim Bill lived long and prospered, by the way. He was still driving in his 90s – but folks tried to make sure everyone knew when Slim Bill took the road. Can't think of a single time that Uncle Bill ever fell on his ass the way poor Louis Henke did that day – but both met the challenge of sheer ice, both won. Louis' way took the weest bit long and was a bit more painful, perhaps.
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Well, kola – I hope it's even close to being as beauuuuuuutiful wherever you are as it is here in Dakota today – and that, if you face a patch of SHEER ICE, you persevere. The stories are always going to include those that highlight the eccentricity of Dakotans – doesn't bother us. For example, today you will find this story of Wednesday last at allowing bikini waxes in North Dakota in a bill that passed to allow them – Jay Leno had some fun with it on the "Tonight Show," my spouse tells me:

Summer is just months away. And soon, North Dakota women will be able to get a legal bikini wax to repare for the poolside. The Legislature has changed state law to allow full body waxing. Before, the law confined a beautician's work to the upper part of the body. Ginny Herberholz is a member of the state cosmetology board. She says some cosmetologists were worried the law would bar them from doing bikini and leg waxes -- even though many salons have been performing them. Herberholz says she isn't sure why the law was crafted that way. The waxing change raised a few eyebrows in the state Senate. Larimore Senator Duane Mutch says he had never heard of a bikini wax before. He says the legislation caused a few laughs. North Dakota salon and spa workers say more women are opting for waxing instead of shaving. Bismarck resident Anna Lavelle says she's glad she started getting bikini waxes. She says it's much more convenient than shaving.

Well, thank goodness! We can't have a law on the books in North Dakota that we don't want to enforce, after all. A legislature that pays less attention to detail may have simply let it be in the hope that no salon would ever be busted for doing leg waxes – not here. Well, except for the law the legislature left on the books prohibiting cohabitation – senators said they really didn't want that enforced, but they did like having it on the books as a moral compass, so to speak.

Big news out of Dakota's largest city, Fargo, on Wednesday was this one:

Someone dumped a garbage can full of dog feces in front of the Republican Party headquarters in Fargo. Cass County Republican Party chairman Adam Hamm says if the early Wednesday morning stunt was meant as an anti-war statement -- it really stunk. Hamm says some believe it was in response to pro-troop signs displayed in the headquarters' windows. The incident was reported to police -- but there are no suspects and no one has claimed responsibility for the act. Hamm says the incident will not stop his group's pro-troop rally this Saturday in downtown Fargo.

All in all, however, things are pretty quiet here in Dakota. We have our marches in support of the troops and our vigils and observations in quest of alternative to war with a minimum of rancor– and we made it through a day of sheer ice without much of a problem. When we do fall on our ass like Louis Henke did that April day back in the 1950s, we pick ourselves up and try again. We're not much for running with the wind on our backs around these parts – keeps us feisty. Be well, kola – take care of yourselves and of each other. Watch out for that SHEER ICE!

Ev Albers