Chapter Two.
This novel so far, this roman a clef, is completely lacking in action. Let’s wake things up a bit.
How about this? On a cold dark night, a Catholic church bursts into flames. Before the fire department can get there the nave is blackened with flames. The holy water boils away in the silver chalice. The bees wax candles evaporate in their red glass votive cups. The highly polished pews blister and crackle like popcorn and collapse into smoldering heaps of carbon.
A catastrophe! And it happened in Williston the year I arrived there. On a Saturday night. But I didn’t cover it. Even though I walked by the smoldering ruins of St. Andrew's Catholic Church on my way to Sacrament meeting and Sunday School.
Because why? Because it was the Sabbath, and I did not work on the Sabbath. In fact, considering the blatant hostility of the Catholic priests I had met, I couldn’t help thinking, briefly and smugly, “That’s one for our side.”
I repudiate that odious sanctimony today. And I wonder why my boss at KGCX, Oscar Halvorson, didn’t fire me right away for ignoring the biggest news story in town in years. But he seemed okay with me giving the insipid second hand details on my news broadcast on Monday. (I recall a little of this incident but it didn’t really mean anything to me. As Tim indicated, feelings from people in the pious religious realm were not kind to people of the LDS faith. In my upbringing I was taught “to be kind to everyone for that is where kindness begins.” Living through mistreatment in a small town was not easy. Trying to get along as a teenager was very much like walking a tightrope. I didn’t realize it until much later that I was preparing to be a circus clown’s bride all my life. We learned to let people be who they wanted to be. To invite them to do things and smile when they refuse. Above all, don’t get your feelings hurt because of their choices. I had pretty deep feelings and I learned to turn off my sad feelings. That was really not a good thing. It turns a body into some pretty yucky diseases if left too long without facing them.)
Oscar Halvorson had a huge wen on the side of his nose. It made hime look like a troll. A Norwegian farmer who won the radio station in a poker game. And since he had been some kind of radio operator in the Army during WWII he knew how to run a radio broadcast station. And he also knew how to put up a repeater. I still don’t know just exactly what a repeater is. But it allowed Oscar to have the real radio station in Sidney, Montana and somehow beam the radio waves to this gizmo in Williston, North Dakota so it was also a Williston station. The real radio station was actually located in the basement of a downtown hotel in Sidney. Right next door to a cattle corral. Or at least it smelled that way the one time I went there to visit.
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My Beloved’s grandparents had a farm right outside (five miles south of the highway that goes by the turn that also goes two miles north to the town) of White Earth, where they kept a few (a hundred) head of cattle. The cows fascinated me, but I kept my fascination at a distance. Because in the circus I had had far too many big lumbering quadrupeds step on my feet.
(The cattle were in the south pasture most of the time. And also, they kept to the coulees because it was protection from the elements of the plains on which the farm was located. Grandpa had inherited from his family the homestead of 360 acres. In 2005 it was granted 100 year homestead status with the US government. It was still in the original family who homesteaded. Grandpa had passed away 17 years before but had deeded the land to my uncle Jim. Uncle Jim deeded the land to his grandnephew and so it is still in the family. No part of the land has been sold so the homestead rules still apply.
There is a natural spring in the south pasture. We used to walk down there on the summer days when it was not too hot to take a walk there. The cattle were not unfriendly, kept their distance. They had worn “cow paths” to the spring so we easily found it. Grandpa used to take old broken machinery out to the knoll above the spring. An old combine and other equipment were great “toys” until we got too big to fit in the nooks and crannies of the machines. Grandpa raised enough alfalfa and wild grass for hay to feed the cattle in winter. He also raised wheat, barley and oats to sell at market. I spent many summer stints (two weeks at a time) out at the farm helping grandpa and together with my siblings (two of us at a time) as we picked rock to prepare the fields for planting. He mowed the hay and bailed it and we helped haul bales. (idiot blocks) at $.02 a bale. It seemed like top pay to us when we got a $10 bill for our work. Branding the calves in midsummer was more fun than something to get paid for but the boys did get paid. They, along with Uncle Jim, had the work of wrestling the calves to the ground and holding them while Grandpa or Uncle Allen or my dad branded, castrated the bulls, and vaccinated them. That process was upgraded to a “calf table” so the women could help when the boys were all grown and gone.
Tired, sweaty, dirty, hungry, we came in and cleaned up in the basement of the old homestead house. The house had running water and It had a cistern for water to use but not drink. The cistern was not really big so showers were not a thing. If we didn’t get really clean with the washcloth at the sink (Grandma was a stickler! She had been the school teacher for many many years at the one room country school house west of the farm) then the wash tub on the floor was the next option. But there was an indoor toilet installed when I was 15 years old. Before that it was the three seater outhouse. Two tall seats and one short.
Grandpa hauled water from the north spring (not the south one because that was in a coulee. The cattle could use that but it was not a good place to try to get a pickup or tractor.) once a week for the cistern. He hauled water from the same spring in separate containers for drinking. The north spring was on top of the plains and we could see lots of things from there.
The farm changed over the years as I was growing up. Grandpa had 5 milk cows for many years and we used to help with milking when we stayed. Grandma was in the “pumphouse” washing the milk buckets and putting the milk in containers to sell. She separated the cream right there with the old cream separator. It was a work of art, that machine! I loved to watch her pour the fresh milk in at the top bowl which held 3 gallons of milk. I get ahead of myself, she had to set up the process first. There was the set of 40 disks to clip in place and secure the rigging for the clip. There were the spouts, one for cream the other for the skimmed milk. There was the holding bowl with the controlling spout. There was the filter placed in the top bowl held above the control bowl by a wooden fashioned square where she poured the milk. I loved the cream. I ate it on my pancakes at grandma’s lovely breakfast table. Grandma cleaned up the separator every evening but during the day after first milking it was kept in the refrigerator in the pump house until evening.
The old cream separator had a story to it. That was the pride of the family when it was new back before my grandpa was old enough to think about chores. His older brother, Thor, was 16 and there was a fire in the house. The cream separator had been bolted to the floor of the house but he knew how much that machine meant to the livelihood of the family. He yanked the thing from the floor and carried it out to safety. Great-Uncle Thor told me the story himself in his old age. Even at 89 years old he was still a hulking big person. Not overweight, just a big guy. He moved his wife and family away from North Dakota in the 1940’s and was very happy that his little brother, Martin, had the homestead place.
Sometimes we would pick the eggs while grandpa and grandma did milking. Grandma had up to 50 free range chickens at times and we could pick the eggs if we had a mind to. My older brother has a story of the hen who would not let you get her eggs. She was a brooding hen and sometimes there were chicks from her brooding ways. Once we brought to the house some of the chicks who were struggling in the hatching. Grandma lit and opened the wood stove and had the chicks in eggs on the open door surrounded with towels between quart jars of hot water. The chicks hatched over a couple days and were a sight! I still remember the smell of them too.
One year Grandma had a goat. She milked the goat. Grandpa was too tall for that. I was grateful for the experience of watching her do that. One year my nephew, being 6 months old, was showing signs of intolerance to cow's milk so my sister asked if I could locate a goat. I was in the Salt Lake City area at the time so I found one and brought it to her in my brother’s pickup. I helped her know what I knew about milking the goat. She was a natural and the milk worked very well for her son.
Grandpa had horses too, and cats and a dog. Us kids were so glad there was a barn for the riding of the horses to be complete. The horse tack was kept in the barn. The cows' stanchions were on the south side and the horse stalls on the north. In the back of the barn, the west end, were a couple holding pens for calves if there was a need. It was also where the wall ladder to the hay loft or “haymow” as Grandpa used to say. Many great times were spent in the haymow. Swinging from the rope and pulley when the hay was not too tall. Lots of kitties were born up there. Lots of snuggle time with them.
Riding horses was an activity that required Grandpa, Auntie Janice, Auntie Carole, Uncle Jim or Mom to help until us older kids were old enough to manage the saddle of the horses. So riding horse was not a frequent activity in my younger years. The horse of choice was Smokey. A dapple gray gelding. He was on the farm all my years of knowing the farm. He died when I was in college and it was a sad day. The other horses were mares and they came and went over the years. Grandpa rode Smokey in the White Earth Valley Rodeo Parade every year that Smokey was alive. Grandma’s mare was a palomino named MayDavis. She was a high-spirited horse and one day she tried to get somewhere and the barbed wire fence cut her hind quarters badly and she had to be put down. Grandma took a long time to decide that it was the thing to do. The vet and Grandma fought over the right thing to do for her. It seemed like months for the choice to be made but in reality it was most likely a couple weeks. Lots of drama.
We would ride Smokey around the “pond” we called the slough (pronounced “slew”) . There was a cow path around the slough and it was a great ride! Took about 15 minutes to get around it. Grandpa had a boat too for a while. That was fun for a diversion after riding horse.)
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