Wednesday, August 13th, 2003

The wee hours of the morning here in beauuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota where I've been spending another perfectly good afternoon and evening in bed with the weest chills in spite of the 90 degree warmth. If anyone had told me that I would be wearing sweats without perspiring on a day like yesterday afternoon a year ago I would have considered their prediction poppycock. I've never quite taken to air conditioning here in Dakota - it's all right for Phoenix or Houston, perhaps, but we really don't need it in absolutely balmy Dakota - never had it out in the Garden of the Universe in Hannover Township in Oliver County when I was growing up - in houses or cars. Now, of course, some of the more decadent of the farmers actually have air conditioning in their tractor cabs out in Hannover Township - along with stereo CD players - probably DVD players for all I know. They're missing a good deal, kola - such as the unforgettable smell of Hannover humanity packed into church on a hot August morning back when sermons were not necessarily mercifully short. Among those with birthdays today, Fidel Castro has never been to Hannover Township, although the farmers there would like to sell him whatever he'll buy. Fidel holds the record for time in power among world leaders today, methinks - he turns seventy-six today. Fidel once said that folks should courteously leave the middle world when they can no longer do things as well as they once did: "I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened." Of course, he said that when he was a much younger man. 'Tis also the birthday of William Caxton (1422) who printed the first book in the English language and went on to publish some eighty more, including many he translated himself. The first book in English, printed around 1475, was Caxton's translation of a book by Raoul le Fevre's which he titled in English The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye . Caxton taught himself printing because his pen was wearing down and his eyes were dimming from copying books by hand.

'Tis a day of many firsts, August 13 - the first taxicab hit the streets of New York City in 1907, the coin-operated telephone is patented (1889), and a country music record sold one million copies for the first time (1924) - "The Prisoner's Song" by Vernon Dalhart, who is not exactly well-known today - in his time he sold about 75 million records.

Oh, I wish I had someone to love me,
Someone to call me their own.
Oh, I wish I had someone to live with
'Cause I'm tired of livin' alone.

Oh, please meet me tonight in the moonlight,
Please meet me tonight all alone,
For I have a sad story to tell you,
It's a story that's never been told.

I'll be carried to the new jail tomorrow,
Leaving my poor darling alone,
With the cold prison bars all around me
And my head on a pillow of stone.

Now I have a grand ship on the ocean,
All mounted with silver and gold,
And before my poor darlin' would suffer,
Oh, that ship would be anchored and sold.

Now if I had the wings of an angel
Over these prison walls I would fly,
And I'd fly to the arms of my poor darlin',
And there I'd be willing to die.

They were still singing this song out in Hannover Township when I was growing up in the 1950s - and it was one of the 78 records that came with the phonograph/radio combination my father came home with one day - one of the greatest days in my life. I have no idea who came up with the records - perhaps the store gathered them from old juke boxes, but it was quite the eclectic collection - everything from country-western to opera. "The Prisoner's Song" was not made up out of whole cloth by Guy Massey, the famous song writer - in fact, he didn't write it at all, his brother Robert did. Guy gave it to his cousin Vern Dahhart to record after he failed - and, eventually, he willed the song he didn't write to his brother Robert, who did - without ever admitting that it wasn't his song. That's the story Novie Massey, Robert's wife, told to Dorothy Horstman, who wrote it up in the 1970s - along with considerable evidence that the song had roots going back a good while in folk tradition. They must have been still singing the song on The Grand Ole Opry back in the 1950s - and my big brother Jim must have picked it up from the record, cause he could really sing that one. I can, too, but not with the style of my big brother Jim.

Today's also the day back in 1948 when the great black hurler, Satchel Paige, threw his first complete game in the majors - the rookie was forty-two-years old and would play for more than three decades around the country, including stints in North Dakota. Satchel, pitching for the Cleveland Indians, shut out the White Sox on August 13, 1948. 51,013 people came to Chicago's Comisky Park to see Satchel Paige. Last night, the Indians, who aren't doing particularly well, creamed my beloved Minnesota Twins 9-6 - although the Twins could have pulled it off in the bottom of the ninth and almost did - I was half in reverie humming "The Prisoner's Song," I think, but the game got my full attention when my boys almost came through. They could have picked up a game on the Kansas City Royals - but, 'twas not to be.

Today is the eighty-fourth birthday of televangelist Rex Humbard, who says that God spoke to him as he watched a Yankees/Indians game through the window of a department store in Akron, Ohio, in 1952 - "At that moment, God placed upon my heart a burden to build a church known as the Cathedral of Tomorrow and from that church take a television and radio ministry across the United States, Canada and eventually around the world." Rex, among all of those who've hit the airways with Christianity, has more or less stayed out of trouble. Named in 1999 by U.S. News and World Report as one of the "25 Shapers of the Modern Era," Rex used to pack 5,000 into his cathedral and reach out to some 20 million in a television program in the 1950s during which the Reverend Humbard would say something like, "What America needs is an old-fashioned, Holy Ghost, God-sent, soul-savin', devil-hatin' revival!" I rather liked old Rex - haven't seen him for a while. He gets a toast of strawberry breeze this morning on his birthday. And here's another to Mudcat Grant, James Timothy Grant (born in 1935), the pitcher, originally for Cleveland, who was with the Twins when they won the World Series in 1965 - and then went on to a half-dozen other teams, eventually winding up with Oakland. Back in 1965, Grant led the League in wins, but Twins owner Calvin Griffith didn't like Grant's life style: for one thing, he was a professional singer as well. Griffith told Grant to stop singing and to stop being seen in public with white women. Grant demanded to be traded to the Dodgers - and the Twins lost him because of Griffith's prudery and racism. Grant wrote a poem called Life -- it's hokey, but oh so American - could be the philosophy of generations of folk from Hannover Township where lies the Garden of the Universe:

Life is like a game of baseball,
You play it every day.
It isn't just the breaks you get,
But the kind of game you play.

So stop and look your whole team over,
And you'll find dedication there.
You're bound to be a winner,
With men who really care.

Your pitcher's name is courage,
You need him in the game.
For faith and trust your keystone men,
The grounders they will tame.

Your center fielder is very fast,
Though small and hard to see.
So watch him, son, when he gets,
The ball he's opportunity.

In left field there's ambition,
Never let him shirk.
For in right field there's a husky man,
I'm told his name is work.

At first base there's religion,
He's stood the test of time.
At third base there's brotherhood,
The stalwart of the nine.

Your catcher's name is humor,
He's important to the scheme.
For with honor warming in the bull pen,
The game is always clean.

With love on the bench,
You've perfection no less.
With a winning team,
And joy and happiness.

Your other team is strong, son,
Greed, hatred, envy and defeat.
Are for strong infielders,
You'll have to buck to make your game complete.

Deceitfulness and a man called waste,
Are always playing hard.
Selfishness and jealousy,
None can you disregard.

Carelessness and falsehood,
Are the big boys in the pen.
You'll have to swing hard, son,
When you come up to them.

There's one more man you'll have to watch,
He's always very near.
He's the pitcher on that team,
And I'm told his name is fear.

This game will not be easy,
There'll be trouble, there'll be strife.
To make the winning runs, my boy,
For this game is played on the field of life.

So stand behind your team, my boy,
There'll be many who'll applaud.
Just remember that you're the player,
And the umpire here is God.

Of course, Mudcat was totally above all-too-human reaction to some of those who taunted him. He said, "Those fans say things about your mother that makes you want to get up in the stands and punch a few of them." I wouldn't have blamed you, Mudcat.

Well, kola, 'tis time to think about heading out to Mudcat's right field and getting the weest bit of work done today - I trust that you are taking care of yourselves, looking out for each other, and getting the most out of the game of life.

Ev Albers

Tuesday, August 12th, 2003

​Ah, yet another truly fine August day in beauuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, where harvest is in full swing – the crops are good, the sun shines bright, and all is nearly right with the world. Well, 'tis the weest dry out in the West – really dry, as a matter of fact. And those pesky West Nile mosquitoes are, in fact, out there – they almost brought down a fine Bismarck fellow who was struck whilst fishing and camping – he's all right, but 'twas a close call.

I'm on the pre-dawn watch and wait for the return of the neighborhood owl and the bird chorus on this day that two women who've influenced on my life were born, though I never met them. Edith Hamilton (1867) lived long and wrote on into her nineties, including a wonderful introduction to mythology that I wore out in undergraduate school – it's still in print, that marvelous book titled, simply, Mythology. Born in 1831 and gone from the middle world a few months before her sixtieth birth, Madame Helene Petrovna Blavatsky had great influence on the second greatest poet of the English language, William Butler Yeats (the greatest, of course, is Dakota's own Thomas Matthew McGrath). A Russian-born mystic and writer, she fled her native land when she was seventeen before her marriage to General Blatvatsky, who was almost seventy, could be consummated. In London, she met a Hindu on the streets who convinced her to travel to Tibet and to India to learn ancient wisdom. Madame Blatvatsky returned to write books and to introduce Americans to the wisdom of the East, including Isis Unveiled, The Secret Doctrine, and The Key to Theosophy, published the year of North Dakota statehood in 1889. The core of Blatvatsky's teachings was that humans could, with the help of spiritual teachers, eventually touch divine reality directly and learn to become an administrator of God's plan on earth – free from matter, superstition, and glamour. Madame Blatvatsky attracted many followers, including Yeats, who joined the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society created by Blatvatsky in 1887 – but he later was asked to resign. Yeats had hoped that the magical promises of the Esoteric Section would actually work – but none of the experiments did – Blatvatsky couldn't raise the ghost of a dead flower or evoke a dream by placing a symbol beneath the dreamer's pillow, so Yeats moved on to The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Nonetheless, Madame Blatvatsky had a great influence on Yeats and his fascination with the occult.

So here's a big gulp of grape juice in memory of Edith and Helene. Here's another to a fellow who's very much alive and well, writing and performing great music – jazz guitarist Pat Metheny who teamed with bassist Charlie Haden on one great album, Beyond the Missouri Sky. Pat is forty-nine today. Country-western musician and composer Buck Owens turns seventy-four today – his real name is Alvis Edgar Owens – that's why he wanted to be called Buck. He wrote such hits as "Act Naturally," "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," and "Waiting in Your Welfare Line" – "I got the hunnnnnnnnngries for your love, and I’m waiting in your welfare line." Buck had seven weeks on the top of the charts with that last one in 1966. And here's a toast to Jane Wyatt of Father Knows Best fame – known to many as the mother of Spock in the Star Trek television series and movies. Wyatt is ninety-two on this day in 2003. She made her biggest early splash with her role as Sondra in Lost Horizon in 1937. Her great lines come as she speaks with the character Robert Conway (Robert Coleman) – her character is a young school teacher who has a great love for pigeons flying with wind flutes in their tails in Shangri-La. Says Sondra, "I'm sure there's a wish for Shangri-La in everyone's heart. I've never seen the outside world, but I understand there are millions and millions of people who are supposed to be mean and greedy. And I just know that secretly, they're all hoping to find a garden spot where there's peace, security, where there's beauty and comfort, where they wouldn't have to be mean and greedy. Oh, I just wish the whole world might come to this valley." Replies Conway, "Then it wouldn't be a garden spot for long."

One of the reasons Dakota is such a garden spot is, of course, that we have yet to attract millions of mean and greedy folk. On the contrary, we're pretty kind and generous folk here in a place where there's plenty of peace, reasonable security – and certainly beauty and comfort in living close to a land in rhythm with a nature sometimes less than gentle – challenging, at times. 'Tis a place that invites introspection and spiritual quests, answers to the big questions, like those posed by our mutual friend, Thomas Matthew McGrath:

MORE NEWS FROM THE LABYRINTH
No.
The way in
And the way out:
Not the same . . .

But how can we tell?

'Tis close to bird chorus time this glorious morning, kola – methinks I'll have the weest slice of sour-cream raisin pie for breakfast and be about work whilst I can. I hope 'tis as beauuuuuuuuuuutiful wherever you are as 'tis here today in Dakota, the closest thing to Shangri-La that can exist here in the middle world. Such paradise exists wherever kola like you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other.

Ev Albers

Monday, August 11th, 2003

My, what a weekend here on Arthur Drive just over the hill from the mighty Missouri in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, the chosen spot for the quiet and peaceful life, one I spent for the most part at home, with the exception of a couple of forays out for food provided by family and friends. In fact, I was abed most of Sunday morning after a Saturday feast at a local Mexican restaurant hosted by my dear sister-in-law Janet Kubik Bleth of Dickinson, who came down with a huge pan of Scotcheroos as well. Now eating that concoction of Rice Krispie cereal gelled into these squares with a half-inch of chocolate on top before going out to have seafood chimichanga with rice and refried beans is the weest bit excessive, especially since my dwindling body has become much more effective in taking care of food quickly and passing through that which it has decided it doesn't need. God help me, how I love these days of relative good appetite and enjoying great food in spite of the consequence.

Yesterday afternoon my dear friend Ed Sahlstrom and his lovely wife Marilyn stopped by on their way home to Dickinson, 100 miles down Interstate 94 to the west. They had been at Lake Melissa with a large gathering of the former students of Jean Waldera, the theatre maven at Dickinson State for several decades before she followed her husband G.J. (Jerry) into retirement. We had a delightful visit – and they brought a gift from friend Jim Lund from over in the Detroit Lake country -- a gooseberry pie. Jim has spent countless hours in search of the pungent fruit of the prairie since I wrote nostalgically of the pie I remember my grandmother and others making when I was a wee one growing up in the Garden of the Universe in Hannover Township in Oliver County, North Dakota. In fact, sitting here this morning in the magical hour before 5:00 A.M., I'm enjoying a slice of a puckering, ambrosial substance encased in the most marvelously flaky crust I've seen in a good long while – I'm having this one with a piece of cheese. Suddenly, I'm transported to my Grandma Henke's kitchen where she is serving up her gooseberry pie to Grandpa and me. I'm about eight, and I'm quaffing huge gulps of milk after bites of the powerful pie known to cure all colds, reduce fever, induce tranquillity, and transform those who eat it into kinder, gentler humans. Ah, Jim Lund, what a gift! I daresay this may be more effective than one of those $3,000 shots of stuff created to give one a bit of energy after a dose of chemo.

But my weekend wasn't over after the visit of Ed and Marilyn who brought the Lund pie. After sleeping through the morning and working the weest for a couple of hours before the visit, Leslie and I went to a feast at Idell and Norm's place – Norm is my first cousin, and he and Idell are our great friends. Norm had caught some walleye up at Pick City – he fried up a passel which was served with fresh vegetables, mostly from their garden – potatoes, sweet corn, creamed cukes, tomatoes. I'm going to warm up a piece of that succulent sweet fish for breakfast in an hour or so – followed by a slice of another pie made by a loving friend, sour-cream raisin ala Idell Albers. I tell you, kola, I could scarcely drag myself to a recliner to rest the weest last night after a piece of her pie on the heels of that great meal. The cut-throat pinochle game that followed the feast is a blur – a short session because I needed to get back to my bed and dreams so sweet that I arose thinking perhaps I had shuffled on to paradise.

Speaking of paradise, today is the seventieth birthday of a fellow who seems to think that many of us are headed for the other place. Jerry Falwell, the Virginia evangelist who concocted the Moral Majority back in the late 70s and toured the country, including a stop for a rally on the capitol steps in Bismarck, North Dakota, remains convinced that all those folks who don't accept his literal interpretation of the Bible are going to hell. Methinks that Jerry needs to lighten up – perhaps a few slices of Lund gooseberry pie might make him the weest more tolerant – but perhaps it would only add more weight to his already disturbingly heavy jowls surrounding his thin, most moral lips from whence judgment spews with such venom. Tell you this – Jeremiah couldn't come close to Jerry Falwell on a roll. Consider, for example, his making Rush Limbaugh seem like a fervent NOW supporter with his condemnation of the modern women's rights movement: "I listen to feminists and all these radical gals - most of them are failures. They've blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That's all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they're mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They're sexist. They hate men - that's their problem." Or read his easy sweeping condemnation of gays: "Homosexuality is Satan's diabolical attack upon the family that will not only have a corrupting influence upon our next generation, but it will also bring down the wrath of God upon America."

Jerry Falwell said in the wake of 9/11/2001, "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." Every evil is blamed on feminism, homosexuality, and abortion. In short, God gave us what we deserved, according to Falwell, who also said, "And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'" More than anything else, Falwell would tear down the wall of separation between church and state – "There is no separation of church and state. Modern U.S. Supreme Courts have raped the Constitution and raped the Christian faith and raped the churches by misinterpreting what the Founders had in mind in the First Amendment to the Constitution."

During the Clinton Administration, Falwell railed daily against Bill and Hillary – speaking of their close association with Satan and the their role in the probable destruction of the United States – in fact, he was totally consumed with hatred for the Clintons. But the nadir of his hate-mongering ways has to be his easy, sweeping pronouncements against gays, including the totally outrageous, "AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharoah's chariotters."

Most recently, Falwell has become the leader of a movement to outlaw same-sex marriage with an amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "I am dedicating my talents, time and energies over the next few years to the passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will protect the traditional family." He is joined by Senate majority leader Bill First and Senator Rick Santorum in this effort following the Supreme Court decision that failed to uphold sodomy laws. He has encouraged Senator Santorum, who says that gay marriages are worse than the September 11, 2001 attacks. Just last week, Falwell appeared on CNN's "Crossfire" condemning the decision of the Episcopal Church to uphold the election of an openly-gay bishop: "A fornicator, an adulterer is someone who violates Scripture [and] is forbidden from leadership in the church."

The Reverend Falwell doesn't limit his sweeping pronouncements to those he considers the worst of sinners, however. He has spoken forcefully about the myth of global warming, and he supports President George W. Bush's current nominee for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor, Jr. Pryor believes that "We derive our rights from God and not from the government," and that the Bible should supersede the Constitution. But Falwell's most intolerant attitude is reserved for gays. A few months ago, his gay cousin, Brett Beasley, went to Jerry for comfort after learning he had HIV: "I'm extremely disappointed about the way Jerry has reacted. I think he's been shameful. My hope was to talk to him about my health situation and ask for his understanding, compassion and forgiveness. Here was his chance to show compassion and to amend the un-Christian positions he has taken. He has all but said, 'This is God's curse. You reap what you sow.' And that is complete nonsense. I wanted to show him I wasn't just another faceless person out there with HIV. We have a blood connection."

There'll be no salute to Jerry Falwell this morning, kola – only the hope that he will be touched with the kind of grace in his seventh decade that will allow him to overcome what is obviously a deprived spirit – aggravated, no doubt, by a lack of gooseberry or sour-cream raisin pie in his life. I hope you are well, kola, that you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other.

Ev Albers

Sunday, August 10th, 2003

​The tenth day of August 2003, a beauuuuuuuuutiful day in Dakota, of course. Oh, 'twill be the weest bit warm for some. Of late I've taken to loving the heat; I've turned cold-blooded since the invasion of my body by the Big C – sweat shirt in August. 'Tis far easier to warm up than 'tis to cool off. My beloved Twins warmed up, finally, in the tenth inning of their game with Detroit by scoring four runs and winning two in a row. Way to go, fellows!

Today is the birthday of Miss Catherine Missouri Walker Jenkinson, the delightful daughter of our friends Clay Jenkinson and Etta Walker. Here's a big swig of strawberry breeze in salute to Catherine's happiness and health. 'Tis also the birthday of Herbert Hoover, the president when all hell broke loose back in 1929.

Born in 1874, Hoover lived on to 1964, some nine decades. He said, "Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself." He also said, with no small satisfaction, "I outlived the bastards." Hoover thought that "What this country needs is a great poem. John Brown's Body was a step in the right direction. I've read it once, and I'm reading it again. But it's too long to do what I mean. You can't thrill people in 300 pages." I don't know why not – but, then, I don't know why Stephen Vincent Benet's long poem is a candidate for the American poem. If Hoover wanted epic poetry for the twentieth century, he didn't live long enough to hear about Dakota poet Thomas Matthew McGrath's Letter to an Imaginary Friend.

Today is the seventy-fifth birthday of Jimmy Dean (1928), as famous for his sausage as he is for singing such songs as his 1961 "Big Bad John" – and Eddie Fisher, who also turn seventy-five on this day. Eddie survived marriages to Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, and Connie Stevens. No "Big Bad John" was Eddie Fisher:

Big John
Big John

Every morning at the mine you could see him arrive
He stood six-foot-six and weighed two-forty-five
Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip
Everybody knew you didn't give no lip to Big John

Big John
Big John
Big Bad John
Big John

Nobody seemed to know where John called home
He just drifted into town and stayed all alone
He didn't say much, kinda quiet and shy
If ya spoke at all, ya just said hi to Big John

Somebody said he came from New Orleans
Where he got in a fight o'er a cajun queen
And a crashin' blow from a huge right hand
Sent a Lousianna fella to the promised land,
Big John

Eddie Fisher's had problems aplenty, but he's survived. Now he takes one day at a time – which is not a bad thing for all of us to do. He wrote a funny and interesting autobiography in 1999 -- Been There, Done That. Writes Milam,

Begin Milam Quote
What sets Fisher's tale apart from the thousand-and-one other I-Was-A-Star books is the fact that he is obviously no dummy. He's someone who can tell us his funny-sad tale with wit and a certain amount of astute introspection. And occasionally, he will stop and make a cogent summary of the foolish things he's done with his life: "By the time I was thirty-three years old I'd been married to America's sweetheart and America's femme fatale and both marriages had ended in scandal; I'd been one of the most popular singers in America and had given up my career for love; I had fathered two children and adopted two children and rarely saw any of them; I was addicted to methamphetamines and I couldn't sleep at night without a huge dose of Librium. And from all this I had learned one very important lesson: There were no rules for me. I could get away with anything so long as that sound came out of my throat."
End Milam Quote

Eddie also learned that, eventually, the sound wasn't enough. Laughter and love is better than any drug. I hope that this fine Sunday morning finds you enjoying both, kola, as you take care of yourselves and look out for each other.

Ev Albers

Saturday, August 9th, 2003

Another warm day here in beauuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, the ninth of the dog days of August. The Twins won last night - barely. Closer Everyday Eddie Guardano almost lost it in the ninth to this year's struggling Detroit after eight innings of great pitching by Johan Santana. Now the Twins are but three games behind the new Central Division leader, the Chicago White Sox, who lead the Royals by a half game. The boys still have a chance. Focus, fellows, focus!

Today's the birthday of John Dryden (1631), the English writer who so dominated his time that his passage in the middle world is referred to as "The Age of Dryden." 'Twas Dryden who wrote,

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call to-day his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Dryden wrote often about borrowing tomorrow's troubles and spoiling the present in the process. 'Tis much easier said than done - taking each day as it comes and savoring every minute of now instead of anxiously fretting about what the next will bring. 'Tis the heart of Matthew 6, which ends, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." As Tom Hennen, the former park ranger and poet who hails from Morris, Minnesota, writes in "The Life of a Day"

Begin Hennen
Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. But there are so few days as compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day were not a hundred times more interesting than most people. But usually they just pass, mostly unnoticed, unless they are wildly nice, like autumn ones full of red maple trees and hazy sunlight, or if they re grimly awful ones in a winter blizzard that kills the lost traveler and bunches of cattle. For some reason we like to see days pass, even though most of us claim we don't want to reach our last one for a long time. We examine each day before us with barely a glance and say, no, this isn't one I've been looking for, and wait in a bored sort of way for the next, when, we are convinced, our lives will start for real. Meanwhile, this day is going by perfectly well-adjusted, as some days are, with the right amounts of sunlight and shade, and a light breeze scented with a perfume made from the mixture of fallen apples, corn stubble, dry oak leaves, and the faint odor of last night's meandering skunk.
End Hennen

'Tis especially hard to take Matthew 6 to heart here in Dakota, which, for all its beauty, is next-year country, a place where many sing some variation of "Things get better by and by, next fall when the work's all done." 'Tis not the kind of place where one easily accepts "Therefore take no thought, saying What shall we eat? or What What shall be drink? or Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" 'Tis a place where folks worry about tomorrow, too much. Not I, not today at least.

Moreover, I would be brief today - there's too much to enjoy. I would take Dryden's advice: "If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed the deeper they burn." The sun is high - hope you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other, kola.

Ev Albers

Friday, August 8th, 2003

A perfect August day in beauuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, kola, this Friday, 8 August – one as balmy as yesterday, when we received the weest bit of rain. The water runs once more in our household after repair to the water main up the road yesterday, my beloved Twins lost but played well at Baltimore, where they split four with the Orioles to remain 3 1/2 games behind the Royals, and I awoke feeling well enough to devour two caramel rolls made for me by Idell Albers, whom my cousin Norm so wisely married. All things considered, a glorious day in a beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful spot here near the eastern shore of the mighty Missouri River.

'Twas on this day in 1968 that Richard M. Nixon accepted the Republican Party nomination for president – coming back from his 1960 defeat. Six years later to the day, Nixon resigned the presidency. In his speech on that day in 1974, Nixon said,

Begin Nixon Quote One
. . . .

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.

To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.

Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.

End Nixon Quote One

The year before in early August 1973, Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew was under attack on August 8 – he denied all charges of accepting bribes and kickbacks and blamed the press and the university, the "nattering nabobs." By October Agnew was gone. In his August 8, 1974 speech, after listing the considerable accomplishments of his administration, especially in foreign affairs, Nixon quoted Theodore Roosevelt,

Begin Nixon Quoting TR
Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."
End Nixon Quote of TR in his Resignation Speech

Curiously, Nixon had addressed, in 1972, what many consider Theodore Roosevelt's greatest mistake as president. Nixon changed to honorable discharge the dishonorable discharges of 167 black U.S. soldiers in August 1906 by President Roosevelt. Some of the men had fifteen years of honorable service, six had been awarded the Medal of Honor for their service in Cuba or the Philippines. The people of Brownsville claimed that some of the soldiers had been involved in a shooting incident leading to the death of one white citizen and the wounding of several others. None of the 167 men would admit that any had been involved, so Roosevelt punished them all and then took off for a trip to inspect the Panama Canal. He refused to change his mind in spite of considerable evidence that no black soldiers had been involved. President Nixon finally recognized the injustice and changed the discharges to honorable in 1972, giving the sole survivor of the 167 a cash payment of $25,000. Nixon gets a sip of grape juice in toast for this action.

My gulp of grape juice in toast goes to today's birthday girl, poet Sara Teasdale, born on this day in 1884. Before she decided to leave the middle world in 1933 by taking an overdose of barbiturates, Teasdale wrote some fine poetry, including poems about such legendary women as Sappho, Beatrice, and Helen of Troy. Her "Helen of Troy" is a good one:

Wild flight on flight against the fading dawn
The flames' red wings soar upward duskily.
This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead
That sparkled so the day I saw it first,
And darkened slowly after. I am she
Who loves all beauty -- yet I wither it.
Why have the high gods made me wreak their wrath --
Forever since my maidenhood to sow
Sorrow and blood about me? Lo, they keep
Their bitter care above me even now.
It was the gods who led me to this lair,
That tho' the burning winds should make me weak,
They should not snatch the life from out my lips.
Olympus let the other women die;
They shall be quiet when the day is done
And have no care to-morrow. Yet for me
There is no rest. The gods are not so kind
To her made half immortal like themselves.
It is to you I owe the cruel gift,
Leda, my mother, and the Swan, my sire,
To you the beauty and to you the bale;
For never woman born of man and maid
Had wrought such havoc on the earth as I,
Or troubled heaven with a sea of flame
That climbed to touch the silent whirling stars
And blotted out their brightness ere the dawn.
Have I not made the world to weep enough?
Give death to me. Yet life is more than death;
How could I leave the sound of singing winds,
The strong sweet scent that breathes from off the sea,
Or shut my eyes forever to the spring?
I will not give the grave my hands to hold,
My shining hair to light oblivion.
Have those who wander through the ways of death,
The still wan fields Elysian, any love
To lift their breasts with longing, any lips
To thirst against the quiver of a kiss?
Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again,
To make the people love, who hate me now.
0 My dreams are over, I have ceased to cry
Against the fate that made men love my mouth
And left their spirits all too deaf to hear
The little songs that echoed through my soul.
I have no anger now. The dreams are done;
Yet since the Greeks and Trojans would not see
Aught but my body's fairness, till the end,
In all the islands set in all the seas,
And all the lands that lie beneath the sun,
Till light turn darkness, and till time shall sleep,
Men's lives shall waste with longing after me,
For I shall be the sum of their desire,
The whole of beauty, never seen again.
And they shall stretch their arms and starting, wake
With "Helen!" on their lips, and in their eyes
The vision of me. Always I shall be
Limned on the darkness like a shaft of light
That glimmers and is gone. They shall behold
Each one his dream that fashions me anew; --
With hair like lakes that glint beneath the stars
Dark as sweet midnight, or with hair aglow
Like burnished gold that still retains the fire.
Yea, I shall haunt until the dusk of time
The heavy eyelids filled with fleeting dreams.

I wait for one who comes with sword to slay --
The king I wronged who searches for me now;
And yet he shall not slay me. I shall stand
With lifted head and look within his eyes,
Baring my breast to him and to the sun.
He shall not have the power to stain with blood
That whiteness -- for the thirsty sword shall fall
And he shall cry and catch me in his arms,
Bearing me back to Sparta on his breast.
Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again!

Here's to Sara, may she rest in peace. And may this glorious day bring you laughter and love, dear kola – take good care of yourselves so that you can look out for each other.

Ev Albers

Thursday, August 7th, 2003

​The weest bit damp this morning on the east bank of the Missouri in beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, but no thunderstorms here in Bismarck, yet - our friends over in Dickinson were blessed with over an inch of rain. 'Twould be wonderful were it to come our way later today - an inch of rain would permit cessation of watering the lawn. Speaking of water, we don't have any in our area since about 10:00 P.M. last night. A water main broke to the north of us, so we are doing without. My spouse filled every container in the house before they cut us off (we were given a bit of warning) so that we would have the stuff for our morning ablutions. Back in Hannover Township in Oliver County - that Garden of the Universe, especially when it rained - we didn't have running water in the house until sometime in the 50s - we carried it in. Of course, we didn't worry much about morning ablutions, either - and baths were a once-a-week luxury, at best. Even after a successful well was dug - down at the barn, not at the house, which was about 150 yards west of the barn - and after my father managed to run a line from the barn to the house - the water that came out of the tap wasn't drinkable. In fact, my parents hauled their potable water in from neighbors' wells until my dad died and my mother moved to town in 1990. This morning, not being able to get a glass of cold water from the "tap" that runs through our refrigerator, foregoing a shower, and being able to flush the john but once seemed a mighty inconvenience. Yesteryear's luxury that one could manage without has become an absolute necessity.

On this day back in 1912, roughriding Theodore Roosevelt declared that it was a national necessity to get rid of William Howard Taft, the Republican president who succeeded him (TR was president from 1901-1909). TR accepted the nomination of the Progressive Party on this day. Later that year, the Progressive Party would become know as the "Bull Moose Party" after TR went on talking after taking a bullet from the gun of an anarchist in Milwaukee on October 12, 1912. TR told the crowd, "You see it takes more than that to kill a bull moose!" As we know, it took more than the votes that TR was able to take away from Taft to defeat the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson - the Bull Moose Party and the Republicans split enough votes to put a professor in the White House.

We Dakotans make much of TR because he spent some time here ranching in the Badlands in the 1880s and because he said that he would never have been president had it not been for his experience in beauuuuuuuuutiful Dakota. In fact, we have named our highest honor after TR - the Rough Rider Award - given to those ". . . present or former North Dakotans who have been influenced by this state in achieving national recognition in their fields of endeavor, thereby reflecting credit and honor upon North Dakota and its citizens." I was thinking about how TR would have reacted to some of the awards given by the Governor, who consults with the Secretary of State and the Superintendent of the State Historical Society of North Dakota. The first two went to bandleader Lawrence Welk and actress Dorothy Stickney when the award was established back in 1961. Welk was a hyphenated American without apology - a German from Russia boy from Strasburg who never lost his accent. TR did not have time for hyphenated Americans - German-Americans, or Polish-Americans. In fact, he was four-square for the "old" stock, the sons and daughters of the earliest Anglo-Saxon immigrants to America, and no small part of the later years of his life were spent in attempts to encourage the "native Americans" (meaning the descendants of the earliest northern European immigrants) to breed more lest the country be overwhelmed by the more prolific new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and, worse in his opinion, Asia. TR was also caught up in by far the least admirable aspect of the pseudo-scientific approach to the good life of the early twentieth century, the American Eugenics Movement. This loathsome precursor of Nazi eugenics needs greater attention - lest we forget. Perhaps another time. For today, sufficient to say that, all things considered, TR doesn't deserve the unqualified admiration we Dakotans give him - he was all too human in his prejudice against those he considered inferior, and he did indeed consider black Americans, American Indians, Asians, and all those with physical handicaps less than full human beings, not quite capable of the highest civilization. TR supported Charles Davenport, the Harvard zoology professor who founded the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, in 1904. Davenport also enjoyed money and support from John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford. TR believed in the sterilization of developmentally disabled - he once said, "Feebleminded people have no rights to be born or to procreate." TR would not have have at all happy with the state of North Dakota giving a Rough Rider Award to such as Dr. Anne Carlsen, the Superintendent of the Crippled Children's School in Jamestown, North Dakota, who was born without hands or feet. Or the award to Phyllis Frelich, the deaf actress who received the Tony for Children of a Lesser God. He would have been happiest with those given to the military men - General Harold K. Johnson, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army in the 1960s; General David C. Jones, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. in the late 1970s, early 1980s; and Admiral William A. Owens, who as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appointed in 1994, oversaw more than 1.5 million men and women in uniform. Admirable folk, these North Dakotans - worthy of the award. But so were Dr. Carlson and Judge Ronald N. Davies, the North Dakota federal judge who faced down Governor Orval Faubas and the Arkansas National Guard with the simple principle that "integration must begin forthwith" in September 1957. TR would never have understood racial integration because he simply did not consider black Americans completely human. As he wrote to his friend Owen Wister, "Now as to the Negroes; I entirely agree with you that as a race and in the mass they are altogether inferior to whites. . . . [They] are bad enough by nature. Race purity must be maintained."

But enough of badmouthing poor TR this fine day, where 'tis indeed raining this mid-morning. Trust the water is sufficient wherever you are today, kola, and that you are taking care of yourselves and embracing more of humanity that Theodore Roosevelt ever could have, given his time and place.

Ev Albers

Wednesday, August 6th, 2003

Of course, 'twill be beauuuuuuuuuuuuutiful in Dakota this 6th day of August. Already is. I'm the weest bit concerned that the neighborhood owl has taken flight for better digs; I haven't heard him/her for the past couple of mornings. Perhaps he/she has left for Minnesota, the destination for many of those who have left Dakota to find work in the past few years, according to this morning's edition of the Bismarck Tribune. We're still sending more folks to the rest of the nation and world – to the enormous benefit of wherever Dakotans land – than we are welcoming people to paradise – but, then, the glory of Dakota remains one of the world's best-kept secrets. That's been changing a bit with folks coming through in search of the path Lewis and Clark trod – in fact, this past weekend when my nephew Hans Kubik tried to find a room in Bismarck, there were few to be had. It's understandable that the world wants to be in Bismarck in August.

Today's the birthday of the English poet with the comma in his name, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809). One of the most successful poets ever, immensely popular, Tennyson made a lot of money from his books of poetry, something that very few have done – no North Dakotan, to my knowledge. Tennyson was the first to become royalty because he wrote verse; he was given a seat in the House of Lords. He's the one who wrote "Crossing the Bar," the poem that appears in so many of those little printed pieces you get at funerals --

Sunset and evening star,
   And one clear call for me.
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
   When I put out to sea,

Etc. Not to disparage perhaps the best of rhymers of the English language, I must say that Alfred, Lord Tennyson's most familiar lines are contain the stupidest of sentiments:

Ours is not to reason why
Ours is but to do or die.

Actually, 'tis not "ours" but "theirs," and it comes from the famous "The Charge of the Light Brigade." The poem is about perhaps the stupidest of military maneuvers ever – the charge into certain death with no hope of prevailing during the Crimean War --

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
   Some one had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die,
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.

Well, kola, 'tis mine to wonder why about many things this fine morning – and, I'm not at all ready to die, thank you very much. 'Tis far too grand a day, and there's far too much to be done. I'll wager 'tis the same for you, kola – you have to be about taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other. May it be a beauuuuuuuuuutiful day for you to do it, wherever you are.

Ev Albers

Tuesday, August 5th, 2003

Yo, ho, it rained just the weest the night before last here in beauuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, where 'twill be an absolutely gorgeous day warmed by a perfect temperature and caressed by the gentlest of breezes. I'm working the pre-dawn wait for the neighborhood owl to return and hoot a bit before retiring – hunting must be good. Fact is, life is good – I'm mucking around in a much less uncomfortable nadir following my last go-around with chemo – didn't get the metomycin last time, so perhaps I'll escape the necessity of platelet transfusion or the worst curse, hospitalization – think so. And my beloved Twins came away with a complimentary win at Camden Yards when the Baltimore Orioles erred and allowed a couple of runs, so my boys are hanging in there. Even had they lost, I would have been most pleased with them, for they focused and played very well. They have to if they are to catch the Royals and White Sox, who are playing each other this week in Chicago.

The data from the hard drive that crashed and cost me days last week is being recovered – at enormous cost – but I was assured yesterday that I would get practically all of what was there back. Now that's really good news, for I won't have to spend days and weeks redoing things, unless something else goes wrong. Ah, life is good, kola. Life is good. 'Twas on this day, the fifth day of August in 1959, that Edgar A. Guest completed his passage in the middle world. Born in 1881, Guest came to America with his family when he was twelve. He became a syndicated newspaperman, host of his own radio program, and even had his own television program for a year or so. Known as the "People's Poet," he cranked out 11,000 "poems." That's a heap of scribblin'. Guest penned every conceivable variation on the theme "Look at the sunny side of life." He wrote about hearth and home and all that other "heap of lovin'" stuff. Here's Guest's poem about the day his father played baseball:

When Father Played Baseball
The smell of arnica is strong,
And mother's time is spent
In rubbing father's arms and back
With burning liniment.
The house is like a druggist's shop;
Strong odors fill the hall,
And day and night we hear him groan,
Since father played baseball.

He's forty past, but he declared
That he was young as ever;
And in his youth, he said, he was
A baseball player clever.
So when the business men arranged
A game, they came to call
On dad and asked him if he thought
That he could play baseball.

"I haven't played in fifteen years,
Said father, "but I know
That I can stop the grounders hot,
And I can make the throw.
I used to play a corking game;
The curves, I know them all;
And you can count on me, you bet,
To join your game of ball."

On Saturday the game was played,
And all of us were there;
Dad borrowed an old uniform,
That Casey used to wear.
He paid three dollars for a glove,
Wore spikes to save a fall
He had the make-up on all right,
When father played baseball.

At second base they stationed him;
A liner came his way;
Dad tried to stop it with his knee,
And missed a double play.
He threw into the bleachers twice,
He let a pop fly fall;
Oh, we were all ashamed of him,
When father played baseball.

He tried to run, but tripped and fell,
He tried to take a throw;
It put three fingers out of joint,
And father let it go.
He stopped a grounder with his face;
Was spiked, nor was that all;
It looked to us like suicide,
When father played baseball.

At last he limped away, and now
He suffers in disgrace;
His arms are bathed in liniment;
Court plaster hides his face.
He says his back is breaking, and
His legs won't move at all;
It made a wreck of father when
He tried to play baseball.

The smell of arnica abounds;
He hobbles with a cane;
A row of blisters mar his hands;
He is in constant pain.
But lame and weak as father is,
He swears he'll lick us all
If we dare even speak about
The day he played baseball.

Not everyone who completed their journey here in the middle world on this were as cheery about life as Edgar A. Guest – this is the day that the great Welsh actor, Richard Burton died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1984. Burton was but fifty-eight. He had cleaned up his life – quit drinking, then, boom! Gone in a second. 'Tis also the day they found thirty-six-year-old Marilyn Monroe dead of an overdose in 1962.

Over 80,000 died on this day at Hiroshima, Japan ('twas the morning of August 6, 1945 there, still August 5 in America) when the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb. On this day eighteen years later, in 1963, the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and Britain signed a nuclear test ban treaty. A year later, in 1964, the U.S. began bombing North Vietnam – with conventional weapons, not nuclear. No nuclear bombs have dropped anywhere since August 1945 – a miracle.

Life itself is indeed a miracle, kola – and mightily fragile – if you'll excuse this near oxymoronic label. I toast all of you this morn with a new drink made by the Boost folk – a power, protein-packed Tropical Fruit Breeze. Hope you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other, kola – as Edgar Guest said so often in so many ways (howbeit in less than the best of poetry), that's why we're here.

Ev Albers

Monday, August 4th, 2003

Another beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful (howbeit dry) day in glorious Dakota on Louis Armstrong's birthday (1901). 'Tis Percy Bysshe Shelley's birthday as well (1792), the English poet who was dead before his thirtieth birthday. He's the fellow that gave us the poem "Mutability," the twist on the old Hericlitusean notion that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Shelley says "the only thing that stays the same is change." "Mutability" is more akin to Hericlitus's "you can't step into the same river twice."

We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon;
   How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!--yet soon
   Night closes round, and they are lost forever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
   Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
   One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest.--A dream has power to poison sleep;
   We rise.--One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
   Embrace fond foe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,
   The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
   Nought may endure but Mutability.

Shelley was expelled from Oxford University in 1811 for writing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism. He married against his father's wishes and took off for Dublin where he tried to incite the Irish to rebellion. He fell in love again, abandoned his first wife and daughter, and eloped to France with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who later become famous for writing Frankenstein. Eventually, the Shelleys went to Italy, where Percy wrote most of his poetry. Their children, William and Clara died there, and Shelley drowned when the sailboat he was on sank. Most often plagued with debt, estranged from his family most of his life, Shelley was an indomitable poetic soul who believed that poetry could change the world for the better.

Shelley was for doing – "Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon," he said. My beloved Minnesota Twins have sometimes rested on the laurels of last year's success, but not yesterday afternoon – they creamed the Detroit Tigers and are managing to stay in the American League Central Division race. I took an afternoon off from my telepathic efforts to encourage the boys to spend an afternoon with my darling daughter Gretchen – we went to see the motion picture Seabiscuit. I see but a handful of movies in the theater a year – all of them prescreened for me by my lovely wife Leslie. She said this was a great one – 'tis. The script, including the dozens of variation on the theme, "you can triumph over all odds if you have enough heart," is packed with lines to bring tears to the eyes of the toughest curmudgeon. I cried, and I loved every minute of it. The integration of historical footage and photographs from the 1930s with narration by historian David McCullough was flawless. One comes out of the theater convinced that no adversity is so great, no odds so overwhelming, that one cannot overcome with the help of friends and a bit of faith.

I began my day yesterday by reading a great essay on this theme by Fargo Forum columnist Jane Ahlin, "Lance is a hero for more than his cycling prowess," a tribute to Lance Armstrong's winning battle with "The Big C," cancer. Noting that she herself had won the battle ten years ago, Ahlin concludes that "all cancer patients facing mountains should be treated like potential Lance Armstrongs. Not famous, but mightily courageous and heroic, they should have every possible chance to win like Lance."

A perfect Sunday, yesterday – and a beauuuuuuuuutiful day before us, kola. I trust you find time for laughter, love, and the weest bit of music as well – perhaps a bit of Louis Armstrong. Go see Seabiscuit if you haven't – it's not just a movie about a horse, of course – it's about people finding a way to take care of each other. Louis Armstrong once said, "All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song." All music worth listening to and movies worth seeing are about folks looking out for each other. To do that, you have to take good care of yourselves, kola – which I trust you will do on this fine day. May it be as beautiful wherever you are as 'tis in Dakota.

Ev Albers